Problem with car caused spin, says Hamilton

2013 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton said the car problem he reported during qualifying led to his spin during his final lap.

After his first run in Q3 Hamilton asked his team to “check my floor when I come in”. He was told they hadn’t seen anything suspicious on his car’s telemetry and he went out for a final run, only to spin between turns 13 and 14.

“For some reason something gave way on the right side of the car,” Hamilton told Sky afterwards. “I was going through the chicane and I got the power and it just snapped out. And then I tried to pull away and it wouldn’t move so something’s busted.”

After qualifying Mercedes posted on Twitter: “We can confirm there was a technical problem with [Lewis’s] car, as he suspected.”

Hamilton has doubts about how much progress he can make from fourth on the grid in the race: “This is a very difficult circuit to overtake [on] so being at the front means everything here.”

“But hopefully we can get a good start like we did in Japan or something like that and we can still challenge for positions. I’m just grateful that we didn’t drop down too far.”

2013 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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30 comments on “Problem with car caused spin, says Hamilton”

  1. Well that shuts Niki Lauda up who said live on RTL he was confident this was a driver error.

    1. still think this was a driver error…

        1. Failed because of the damage he did to it on the kerb. So it is still his mistake

          1. If Alonso could have a 15G crash over the kerbs during the race and still have a properly functioning car,why did Lewis’ car get damaged after a small excursion over the Kerbs ?? Think about it.

    2. Probably his error damaged the floor on his first attempt @force-maikel

    3. As I heard it, he continued on from something else, said he had no word yet so for now (then) leave it at driver error, which is a bit more level minded @jcost, isn’t it?

  2. Wasn’t the floor damaged after that slight off in the first sector, at his first run in Q3?

    Or maybe that was a consecuence of the problem they couldn’t find?

    1. Yeah that might have caused it, he nailed it pretty hard

  3. Okay so what now ? they can repair his car? or will he start from the back . How much does parc ferme rules allow to repair ?

  4. “good start like we did in Japan”?

    1. Yes, the start was good, he jumped the Bulls only to get his right rear tyre tipped by Vettel @wok03

      1. OmarR-Pepper (@)
        2nd November 2013, 16:18

        @jcost you make it sound as if Vettel did “a Schum” and closed the door to damage Hamilton. It was a mistake done by the chaser, as Perez (vs KIMI) in Monaco

        1. Didn’t sound like meant that at all.

        2. Hamilton’s rear tyre was sliced by Vettel’s front wing – how was he the chaser when he was ahead?

        3. @omarr-pepper that’s a clear misinterpretation from you. I’d call that a racing incident and I would not say Lewis made a mistake, there clearly was a gap he exploited but Seb slightly missed his braking and couldn’t avoid him, too bad Pirellis can’t take any kind of stress.

          1. What racing incident? What braking? They were all still in the acceleration zone. Lewis misjudged how far ahead he was and clipped himself against vettel’s wing. Exactly the same scenario as in spa last year with gro, only ham was a bit more ahead. On top of that vettel had grosjean on his right and couldn’t move 1 inch in either direction to avoid hamilton. Ham’s fault 100%.

          2. @juzh if you got past and someone is in front braking should be the call

          3. I feel like nobody watched the incident. Hamilton moved slightly across the front of Vettel as a reaction to Webber suddenly starting to cut in towards him. A racing incident initiated by Webber. Vettel was boxed in so couldn’t do much to avoid it.

          4. @jcost so wasn’t hamilton braking in spa last year? Gro was clearly in front of him.

          5. @juzh reading your last comment just make me wonder whether you’re trying to analyse the first lap racing incident at Suzuka or you’re just into “hitting” Hamilton…

            Seriously, at Spa last year Grojean went across Lewis and there was nothing to do. Sure braking was not easy at Suzuka either but those incidents are like water and oil…

        4. @jcost It was a start incident nothing more. No need to apportion any blame

          1. I was not blaming anything but fragile tyres @strontium :)

          2. @jcost fair enough :P

  5. Mercedes confirm a right rear wishbone failure…

  6. Slightly offtopic, but whats up with Rosberg not getting a penalty? He had 4 wheels off the track at the last corner every single lap of qualifying.

  7. Pity, I think he was the only one capable of challenging the Red Bulls for the front row today. He said he was around 0.4s up on his first run in Q3 at the time of the car failure, so he could have been close – albeit maybe still a tenth or two away.

  8. The cars are in Parc Ferme. How can they repair his car. If they can repair it, then what’s the point with P.F?

    1. @khm, They are still allowed to replace clearly defective parts with identical specification, unless gearbox, or extra engine of course, and it is all upon approval by FIA stewards (technical delegate?) If I am not mistaken. But no setup changes.

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