At the Las Vegas GP, Lewis Hamilton faced a couple of difficulties after an early collision with Oscar Piastri left the seven-time World Champion with a puncture and needing to come through from the back of the field.
Photo Credit: Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team
The frigid racetrack conditions caused Hamilton, who qualified in 10th place, to find himself stuck in Turn 1, just like many other drivers did. At Turn 14, Hamilton made contact with the McLaren as they fought for P6. This caused a right-rear puncture and wrecked the hopes for both drivers who were potentially battling for the podium.
Running in 17th after the final Safety Car period, the seven-time World Champion finished 7th overall with a nice recovery, one spot ahead of his team-mate George Russell who had a five-second penalty applied. Hamilton’s hopes of P2 in the Drivers’ Championship were ended as Sergio Perez finished on the podium.
“It was a pretty challenging race. I started on the hard tyre which was tricky at the beginning obviously, I got hit by someone behind a big hit, I think it was from Carlos,” Hamilton said in his post-race interview.
“I was just trying not to hit the cars that spun round and I fell back I think five or six places.
“And then after that just making my way back I was feeling great as the tyres were feeling good, pace was strong.
“I don’t really know exactly what happened but I got hit from behind and I think it was a racing incident.”
Photo Credit: Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team
After making contact with Piastri, Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes suffered a puncture, resulting in what he considers to be a loss of up to 40 seconds of lap time.
Unfortunately for the Brit, his right rear tyre deflated shortly after passing the pit lane, slowing him down enough that he had to complete a whole lap at a slow pace.
“I didn’t have a puncture immediately so I was accelerating and just as I got alongside the pit lane entry I felt the rear was moving and I was like it’s too late to come in so I had to do a whole slow lap and I must have lost like 40 seconds.” he said.
“But grateful that I was able to come back, and apologies to the team for the poor qualifying yesterday.” he concluded.
