Martin Whitmarsh: Lewis Hamilton damaged his and Jenson Button’s tyres in Turkey – Formula 1 news
McLaren team boss Martin Whitmarsh has criticised Lewis Hamilton’s driving strategy in the Turkish Grand Prix of the 2011 Formula 1 season.
Martin said that Hamilton unnecessarily applied pressure on his teammate Jenson Button and in the process, destroyed the Pirelli tyres of both cars.
Martin said, “We want Lewis to attack, but sometimes it does not pay off. If you look at Lewis' race pace, it was okay later in the race, but the tyres are so delicate and if you scrap with others including your own team-mate [Button], you will damage them.”
Hamilton also accepted that he failed to look after his tyres and lost some time to the front running drivers.
He said, “If I hadn't damaged the tyres at the beginning, we would have been a lot closer. I had a bit of a scrappy start and then lost ground to the leaders. The race is not won in the first two corners. I was impatient and that was my fault.”
Hamilton lost some time at the start of the race and then had a bad pit-stop in the middle part of the race. The Brit’s front tyre was not coming off and he lost some crucial seconds to Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso.
Hamilton came out of the pits and charged at his teammate Button, who was on a three-stop strategy. Button was already slow on his hard tyres and lost his tyres after being involved in a battle with Hamilton for fourth place.
The aftermath of the race was that Button was overtaken by Mercedes’ driver, Nico Rosberg and McLaren lost some important points.
Hamilton has always been in an aggressive mood as the first four races of the 2011 season tell. The 2008 Formula 1 champion has overtaken Button on three occasions but in the Turkish Grand Prix, his aggression proved a disaster for the team. McLaren team
is now 43 points behind the Red Bull team in the constructors’ table.
The next race follows in Spain and hopefully Hamilton will drive to Martin’s liking.
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