Hamilton’s first test for Mercedes ended by crash
2013 F1 season
Lewis Hamilton’s first day of testing for Mercedes ended in disappointment.
He crashed after just 15 laps in the car following a fault on the hydraulic brake line at the right-rear. He went into the barrier at Curva Dry Sack, damaging the front-left of the car.
Hamilton was unhurt, but Mercedes later confirmed they would be unable to continue in the day’s test.
It is a second setback for the team after Nico Rosberg’s run yesterday was disrupted by a fire. He managed just 14 laps.
Hamilton was second-fastest at the time of his crash, 0.032 seconds slower than Daniel Ricciardo.
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Image © F1 Fanatic | f1fanatic.co.uk
Sikander said on 6th February 2013, 13:27
Wow… All those technical directors are not able to give one technically reliable car… its a shame
Beto (@chebeto0) said on 6th February 2013, 16:03
They obviously need more!
latina (@latina) said on 6th February 2013, 16:30
Too many cooks at Mercedes.
Jason (@jason12) said on 6th February 2013, 18:17
:D The many execs are because of parallel development for 2013/14
Sikander said on 6th February 2013, 19:05
I hope that’s what they are for. I am sceptical about Brawn’s comment about the parallel development. I think Bernie pointed out that Brawn might be on his way out.
mclaren (@mclaren) said on 6th February 2013, 13:29
Shocking start for Mercs, better to iron out all these problems know rather than in the middle of a GP, anyway looking forward to hearing how the car felt for the 15 laps, you can always rely on Hamilton to give honest feedback about the car to the press
Osvaldas31 (@osvaldas31) said on 6th February 2013, 13:38
It’s actually second crash for Mercedes (including the on saturday)!
Jeff1s (@jeff1s) said on 6th February 2013, 13:42
Knowing a good run in test could lead to more than 100 laps, the 29 laps in two days are really poor for Mercedes. Already a bad first week of testing!
GeeMac (@geemac) said on 6th February 2013, 13:43
2 days testing gone, 29 laps, lots of repairs for the mechanics to make. NOt a great start to the year for Mercedes.
Kenneth Midgett (@midgeman) said on 6th February 2013, 13:46
So, HAM left McLaren after a season of mechanical failures and disappointment. More of the same to come?
N said on 6th February 2013, 13:56
Atleast they’re happening at the start of pre-season testing and not during the season when hes leading races.
hobo (@hobo) said on 6th February 2013, 16:43
Yet.
Last year was not good for reliability at Merc. Especially for drivers not named Nico.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner) said on 6th February 2013, 13:47
Doesn’t phase me too much. Lotus had a good 2012 after the disaster they had in testing a year ago.
Chris (@tophercheese21) said on 6th February 2013, 13:50
Even though it’s only the second day of testing, it’s still not a good start. Thankfully they still have time to catch up.
dan (@f190) said on 6th February 2013, 13:56
Its still very early into testing so I’m keeping the faith. In fact, it actually gives me some faith in merc as they have clearly changed a lot on the car hence the problems. I know they were having problems last year but if they brought the car they raced in Brazil to Jerez, for sure it would have lasted more than 29 laps over two days.
Also, I’d much rather it break and crash now so they have time to find faults and fix them, rather than look great until the final days testing and then have a load of problems develop. Don’t forget, Williams aren’t even using their 2013 car yet.. But people feel their testing is going well. It doesn’t look good yes, but its still way to early to worry about anything.
Avenger said on 6th February 2013, 13:58
the mercedes has got a dead rear end.
MazdaChris (@mazdachris) said on 6th February 2013, 14:00
Obviously it’s not the ideal way to start the year, but then that’s the whole purpose of testing – find out what’s good and what’s not, what’s going to break, and so on. Better for it to fail now than on the 29th lap of Melbourne. It would be a more disappointing start if they had lost time due to driver error, etc, but that’s not the case.
Don’t forget that these are extremely sophisticated prototypes, being given their first few kms of track time. There’s no way you can reasonably expect nothing to go wrong. I’d be more concerned if they’d been sidelined today by a recurrence of the same issue which they tried to fix yesterday, but this is a new problem, and one I’m sure they’ll overcome.
At this stage of testing, this is pretty much exactly what it’s all about – shakedown runs using the new components to see if it all works as predicted. They won’t be doing any detailed aero testing at this point, so they’re not really losing an awful lot of data with limited running. If it was the third test then it may be a bit worse.
Eddie (@wackyracer) said on 6th February 2013, 14:00
Better sooner then later
BasCB (@bascb) said on 6th February 2013, 14:01
Not a great start, on the other hand I bet they would have loved to have had the technical glitches in testing last year, instead of them ending many races (esp. Schumi’s first half of the year)
Aaron (@thetechbox) said on 6th February 2013, 14:24
Whilst it is not a great start, it is only the second day of testing. It’s better that this kind of thing happens in testing (as it often does) then it happening in the races.
Nick.UK (@nick-uk) said on 6th February 2013, 14:51
Put it this way. It’s great this is happening now and not in the races.. like Lewis’ McLaren last year. Time will tell if they can sort it out. Teams have comeback from worse, that’s for sure!