Lewis Hamilton’s driving abilities can make it difficult for his team to understand his car’s behaviour on-track, according to one of his former engineers.
Williams team principal James Vowles, who worked on Hamilton’s cars when he won six world championships with Mercedes, explained the complications they sometimes encountered working with him.“Lewis just had these oodles of natural talent,” Vowles told High Performance. “He’s got these tendencies and traits where, when you go out in [first practice], he’s like an octopus all over the wheel. He’ll change every setting of the wheel near enough and explore it. But it’s what makes him incredible.”
Hamilton’s feel for the car sometimes gave him an advantage over his team mate, such as when he was paired with Nico Rosberg, said Vowles.
“There was a time where on simulation in Brazil it said to go into seventh gear up the hill. Nico was doing exactly as we asked him to do. Within two laps, Lewis went ‘this doesn’t feel right’, went back down to sixth and was finding a tenth there.
“It took until the end of the session before Nico saw the data and saw that. He’s this optimiser. He’ll use data as the starting ground, but he’s got a feel beyond anything else for it.”
When Hamilton first joined Mercedes in 2013, he had a tendency to abort laps immediately if he made an error at the first corner, which the team gradually encouraged him to change.
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“He has no issue exploring the boundaries,” said Vowles. “That originally manifested itself in, you’d often see him go off at turn one, he’d find the absolute limit of braking and it would just push him wide at turn one, then abort the lap.
“One of our biggest frustrations with him was that out of 20 laps, he did one. [We thought] come on, you’ve got to do more than that. And actually, if you look at the maturity Lewis had between ’13 to now, you’ll see he completes every lap. He’s now found a way of still gaining the experience and make a lap out of it.
“But he was this perfectionist and braking was his strength, his forte: ‘Maximise everything under braking and then I know the limits of the car and then I can build from there and get into the rhythm of things’.”
However the speed with which Hamilton adjusted to a circuit and explored his car’s handling configurations sometimes left his engineering team struggling to keep up.
“Because he’s explored all these boundaries he knows in just a few laps in [first practice] – and he learns the track incredibly quickly – what the boundaries of the car are, what the limits are already within his tools that he has available in the steering wheel. Which was quite fast, for what it’s worth. And [he] understands therefore how to get the car to the right positioning as the grip comes up.
“It’s very, very impressive: where others are still just spending seven or eight laps learning the track, he’s explored quite a bit of the boundaries. Now that came with some downsides, often.
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“Often he would change the car so quick that you’d lose yourself. Certainly, as engineers, it’s difficult when your data is all moving: the track’s moving, the grip’s moving, the driver’s moved everything on the steering wheel. You don’t know where you are, and then he comes in and we’ve changed [the] aero balance. You think, okay, we’re starting from scratch here, basically.
“That’s some of the reasons why, at times, you’ll see Lewis drops backwards and often when he jumps forwards again is [because] he’s gone to a set-up that’s known and now he’s back on the money. But he’s able to do that and many drivers aren’t. He’s able to explore often, accept that he’ll have a whole session perhaps in the wrong place on set-up, but he’s learning from it and that’s Lewis all over.”
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Aquila_GD
4th March 2025, 13:40
This is such an insightful piece.
It certainly gives good information on how Lewis drives and why the last few years were challenging with Mercedes not sure about anything on their car
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
4th March 2025, 15:33
Engineers running through their programs and a guy trying to feel out a car are two different things.
The last few years were difficult for Lewis because his team boss was showing clear preference to George Russell, as well as the engineers were literally chiding him for trying to contribute to development.
Toto was trying to run Lewis out of the team since 2021, pretty sure. Why ? Because hes an investor and investors work on time tables, they don’t care about people, at all really. It’s all about money, and marketing for guys like Toto, and power + control.
SteveP
4th March 2025, 16:07
It was ever thus.
Jody Scheckter is on record as saying he was bad at feedback to the engineers because he tended to adapt to the car behaviour rather than ask to have the car behave a particular way.
‘The Michael’ raced a good part of the Spain 1994 event with a reducing number of gears and finished with only fifth available – still came second.
Esploratore (@esploratore1)
5th March 2025, 1:28
Yes, I remember, senna had such an episode too in brazil, I believe he wasn’t ever able to win in brazil except one year, and that year he had a similar issue that limited the gears he could use, and in that case a bit of rain in the end saved him from losing the win, cause with his wet weather ability he was able to reduce the amount of time he lost per lap.
Severin (@severin)
6th March 2025, 10:40
Senna won twice in Brazil – 1991 and 1993
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
5th March 2025, 5:01
“saying he was bad at feedback to the engineers because he tended to adapt to the car behaviour rather than ask to have the car behave a particular way.”
–> this happens when your driver is faster than your engineers. And engineers have this opinion when they don’t know how to setup a car to maximize the potential of the car/fuel/tires.
This isn’t a legitimate complaint, if the engineers had a valid criticism it would be, Lewis refused to work with engineers, or refused to run in certain modes/settings or attack certain corners in a certain way, or hit certain brake markers, etc…
Engineers faulting someone trying to solve the problem on their own, is pure jealousy and speaks of incompetence.
pcxmac (@pcxmac)
5th March 2025, 5:05
ps. there are so many bad engineers out there. The first red flag you know if you are dealing with a bad engineer is that they care more about their own ego, vs their work/quality. Another red flag is they blame other people for their own incompetence. Ive worked with lots of “engineers”, and yes, its a business/trade onto itself, and finding people who care more about their work than how they look isn’t easy.
Good engineers are all about the problem, and don’t give two ounces for status, looking good, or their pay grade. It’s in them to figure and solve problems, just like it’s in Lewis to win races, its pure drive. Social engineers don’t count.
SteveP
5th March 2025, 6:41
bosyber (@bosyber)
5th March 2025, 13:11
I recall Red Bull also mentioned having something like this issue with Verstappen last year (or 2023 already?) in him being their benchmark and thus ignoring Perez’ issues too long which actually turned out to have been a signal of the car being developed into a dead end.
It’s interesting because Data driven has lead F1 to improve a lot, but it also takes time and method, but with the current lack of testing time (both for the season and at weekends, and only set to reduce it looks like), maybe that’s not actually sustainable the way teams try to do it at the moment. The large variability and unpredictability of teams competitiveness over the weekend, largely for Mercedes, but also for Red Bull, Ferrari, and to some extent McLaren, not to mention other teams seems to indicate so.
BrunoC64 (@brunoc64)
5th March 2025, 23:25
That’s partially correct. It was further back in 2020 with the RB16 that Verstappen’s ablities to drive around problems masked the issues the team had with the development of that car. It was somewhat tricky to drive and the team was trying to find a remedy for the handling of the car. Because Verstappen was able to drive around the biggest part of the problems the team noticed too late that the development of the car went to a dead end (as you’ve mentioned) and therefore also lost a lot of time needed in developing a better car.
I took them almost more than half of the season before they turned things around to get near the Mercedes level.
fixer_B
4th March 2025, 16:37
Asking James Vowles, Team Principal about Lewis Hamilton is like asking a guy about his girlfriend from 10 years ago… in front of his wife! Don’t get me wrong: great piece on Lewis as he was 5-6 years ago. But is that the Lewis we will see this season? As a Lewis fan I certainly hope so…
El Pollo Loco
4th March 2025, 16:57
Why? Because of Sainz? I doubt Sainz would care or be like “how dare you compliment Lewis! He replaced me!” Lewis is a 7x WDC and in some ways not Carlos’ contemporary. That’s why I do think it’d be awkward if, let’s say Vowles had worked with Leclerc and he was lavishing praise on him.
Jere (@jerejj)
4th March 2025, 17:45
fixer_B I’m also somewhat baffled that he was asked about a driver or matter that has zero concern for his current team.
XM (@xmf1)
4th March 2025, 22:41
This podcast was before Sainz signed to join Williams
El Pollo Loco
4th March 2025, 16:53
From what I’ve heard it was actually Nico was who far more creative and clever in terms of exploiting the cars tools to the maximum. He was also known for being super talented in terms of development. I’m sure, as Vowles implies, Lewis has/had more sensitivity in terms of something not being right or optimized. However, in terms of using the tools and especially engineering acumen, I’ve heard tons about Nico and not much about Lewis.
I also remember that at various points Lewis started using Nico’s setups (usually when he was in a funk and Nico was on a roll). I’m sure the opposite happened to though with Nico getting frustrated by Lewis’ superior natural speed and trying his setup to see if it would help him even things up. IIRC, neither were happy when they tried mirroring their teammates’ setup.
N
4th March 2025, 17:44
“From what I’ve heard…”
…Next.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
4th March 2025, 17:53
Oh there’s always a next with this guy
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 4:42
Are you suffering from hot flashes or other issues, @tonymansell? I only ask because, besides my wife and ex-gf’s, you’re the only person I’ve ever seen stay so angry over an argument that happened months in the past. It’s not good for your health (increased chance of stroke + cardiac events). I hear breathing exercises + meditation can help.
Cheers & Get Well!
Dex
5th March 2025, 19:32
Everything you know about F1 you’ve either heard of read, so why so arrogant?
N
5th March 2025, 23:38
Why so arrogant?
We literally have someone who couldn’t know better on this topic, a literal engineer from the Mercedes team talking about their experience with Hamilton and his abilities yet some random internet andy knows better. Is laughable.
El Pollo Loco
6th March 2025, 4:26
OK, so we’ll begin taking every compliment a team boss gives to a driver they work with or have worked with as gospel? I could cite many you’d disagree with just by scrolling through a few months of RF articles.
And I’m basing my comments I’ve heard from drivers, engineers, etc. Do you think I’m just looking at their faces and thinking “oh, he knows what he’s doing.”
So, we’ve got a cultist who takes any opinion that doesn’t jibe with what he wants to believe and the ever reliable Tony (I’ll cut you a rent check soon, Tony) employing fantastic ad hominem attacks. Great level of discussion as always.
El Pollo Loco
6th March 2025, 6:23
PS – I’ll note, that one of the reasons for my post is that you don’t often hear drivers being singled out for being special in regard to being intrinsically engineering minded or noted for development skills. The only drivers I remember reading, hearing, etc. a lot about specifically in these terms are Schumacher and Rosberg (not including drivers like Wurz who are known primarily for their testing careers). Similarly, I remember many sources saying Barichello while obviously not the best of race drivers, was one of the most talented drivers in the modern era of being able to tease out great setups with problematic cars and fine tuning good cars.
I’ll also note the absurdity of putting “I heard” in quotes or implying the verb means based on wild rumors or made up.. Besides, I “heard” or “read” how does one refer to the totality of what they’ve read, heard or watched during decades of following F1? I haven’t seen anyone including [1] [2] [3] after each statement and then a bibliography at the end of their post.
David BR (@david-br)
4th March 2025, 17:44
Good points though ‘actually’ doesn’t work in your first sentence as you’re talking about two different things, Nico’s engineering-oriented approach (potentially creative, yes) and Lewis’s driving-oriented approach, exploring the limits of the car and track.
bosyber (@bosyber)
5th March 2025, 13:15
Well said David BR, that’s exactly what Vowles did mention: Nico was great to give feedback, smart and clever in using the tools, which is in general easier to combine with a data-driven approach. But, Lewis might come up with a setting that it outside of the ‘local minimum’ of the simulation/data optimisation which is a lot better. And in case you don’t quite understand the car, that could them make it competitive when the standard approach would get you stuck in not-quite there territory. Ideally you’d use the Lewis approach to find new fields of optimisation that were unexplored in the methodical data before and use your systematic test(sim)driver to try that out at base.
David BR (@david-br)
5th March 2025, 17:46
@bosyber Thanks, that’s a more elegant and informed way of making my point!
w0o0dy (@w0o0dy)
4th March 2025, 18:31
Somehow all this praise doesn’t rhyme with the fact he didn’t seem to ever get fully on top of the characteristics of the ground effect cars (2022 until now). If he is/was so amazing at finding time by being creative, surely he would have beaten George?
N
4th March 2025, 19:34
By what metric are you using to judge that Russell beat him? just qualifying?
He beat George in 2023, won as many races in 2024, and beat him overall on points during their time together despite being a test-dummy through-out 2022.
BenHur
5th March 2025, 0:56
Next
N
5th March 2025, 10:52
We know from Hamilton, his team, and visual evidence that it’s objectively true.
Thoughts?
Doh
5th March 2025, 11:58
Also true towards the end of 2024 and the evidence is there too. Toto confirmed it twice. Once in September and the other time I think around last vegas
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 4:18
Throughout 2022? No, for roughly the first quarter of the season he was trying more experimental setups while GR was running safe ones. Besides exaggerating the duration, your post also implies that all of these setups were inherently a handicap, which would defeat the entire purpose of running them…
NEXT
El Pollo Loco
7th March 2025, 4:28
@w0o0dy, you can’t be right. After all this is Lewis Hamilton we’re talking about. The simple fact he has 10x more fans here than any other driver should be evidence enough you’re wrong. And these are fans you can trust to put personal feelings aside.
SteveP
4th March 2025, 19:37
As the stats show, mostly, he did.
Edvaldo
4th March 2025, 21:13
This approach would’ve worked wonders in unlimited testing times, not as much today, when they only have a handful of days to get things going, excluding practice sessions all year.
XM (@xmf1)
5th March 2025, 0:23
Newry Chose to work with Alonso over Hamilton
BenHur
5th March 2025, 0:57
With Alonso you can work
SteveP
5th March 2025, 6:48
Newey chose to work in a team where he gets partial ownership, can modify the work pattern to his methodology and do it all in English (of the technical kind)
Ferrari, is Ferrari.
Tony Mansell (@tonymansell)
5th March 2025, 9:35
You may as well say Newey chose to drive on the left instead of the right.
Do you think Aston would take Lewis right now?
SteveP
6th March 2025, 7:55
Now there’s an idea – replace Stroll with Hamilton and bring the 2007 dream team back together :)
Should get on like a house on fire, substantial property damage included…
Edvaldo
5th March 2025, 12:35
What newey has been seeking for more than 30 years is ownership.
Wanted it in every team he has been a part of.
Aston is the first team that complied. It has nothing to do with who’s driving.
David BR (@david-br)
5th March 2025, 17:41
@xmf1 You think given the choice of one or other driver, Newey would choose Alonso?
I suspect (a) he prefers the fastest drivers and (b) he thinks Alonso is past his prime, Hamilton possibly not (or not much). We can only conjecture though. Newey signed to Aston Martin for reasons other than the two present drivers, clearly.
Jungle
5th March 2025, 10:31
I remember Malaysia watching the practice sessions around 2014 or 15. Semi monsoonal type of wet track and Lewis was just slaying Nico on the time sheets. Nico was lost and asking the pit crew almost panic in his voice what line he should be taking through certain corners. Not long after is when they banned coaching the drivers over the radio.
Turkey too during the covid period. Just had the feel for the car on worn intermediates on a wet greasy new resurfaced track still leaching emulsion.
Hans Herrmann (@twentyseven)
5th March 2025, 13:02
Lewis and Nico both play the trumpet. Nico plays in the orchestra Lewis plays Jazz.
Colin
5th March 2025, 14:00
…and this is why smart teams always paired lewis with drivers that were good at setting up cars. Russell, I suspect, worked out the game going into Merc and was most likely manipulating things to not hand Lewis setups…
David BR (@david-br)
5th March 2025, 17:44
It’s obviously not 100% either way, but if Hamilton does borrow set-ups, his team mates have always trawled his telemetry to see where he’s faster at the start of the weekend. Russell included. I imagine some of the offset last season was precisely Hamilton losing out on the former and GR still gaining from the latter.
Lapov Onor
5th March 2025, 17:55
I can’t help but think this is likely to be the case with a few of the upper tier of drivers, may even go some way to explaining why Checo was never that close to Max unless the car was absolutely suited to the circuit, and when it wasn’t he was woefully detached time wise.
This in itself could prove a challenge for Ferarri as Charles is clearly also one of that upper tier, which could lead to them having two drivers ‘driving around’ issues and the engineers getting confusing feedback as a result.
AlanD
5th March 2025, 20:45
Really good article giving insights into the minds of drivers and engineers.
Ferdi
6th March 2025, 7:43
Let’s add some more excuses (wrapped as compliments) in case he might fail at Ferrari.
Alex
6th March 2025, 12:50
It seems Lewis got a bit lost on his approach since 2022.