Williams boss James Vowles has discussed how Lewis Hamilton’s “octopus” tendencies behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car is one trait that isolates him from other drivers.
Prior to moving to Williams, Vowles had served as Strategy Director at Mercedes and worked alongside Hamilton as the team dominated the sport from 2014 to 2021.
During that unrivalled run to eight consecutive Constructors’ Championships, Hamilton added six Drivers’ titles to equal Michael Schumacher on seven, while also surpassing the record for race victories.
Despite Mercedes having the measure of rivals in the infant stages of the V6 turbo-hybrid era, the Briton faced intra-team competition from childhood friend Nico Rosberg, who retired at the end of 2016.
Vowles has detailed how Hamilton’s instant confidence to traverse through the various modes on the steering wheel helps him maintain an edge over his counterparts.
“Lewis just had these oodles of natural talent. With him he’s got these tendencies and traits where, if you go out in FP1 he’s like an octopus all over the wheel,” Vowles recently told the High Performance Podcast.
“He’ll change every setting on the wheel and explore. It’s what makes him incredible.”
Vowles was able to recollect a precise moment where Hamilton relied on his natural talent over the data to summon a small advantage over Rosberg on the race track.
“There was a time on simulation in Brazil it said ‘go into 7th gear up the hill’ and within two laps Nico was doing exactly what we asked him to do. With Lewis, he went back down to sixth and he was finding a tenth there. It took until the end of the session before Nico saw the data,” he explained.
“He’s [Hamilton] this optimiser where he’ll use the data as a starting ground, but he’s got a feel beyond anything else for it. He’s got no issues exploring the boundaries.
“That originally manifested itself when he would often go off at Turn 1. He would find the absolute limit of braking and it would push him wide at Turn 1, then abort the lap.”
However, Vowles contends Hamilton didn’t arrive at Mercedes as the complete package in 2013 and it took several years for him to mature into the driver he has since become.
“One of our biggest frustrations with him, over 20 laps he did one and we’re like ‘Come on, you’ve got to do more than that!’
“And actually if you look at the maturity of Lewis between 2013 and now, he does the majority of laps. He’s found a way of gaining the experience from the lap, but he was this perfectionist that wanted to maximise everything.
“Because he’s explored all these boundaries, he knows in just a few laps during FP1 what the boundaries of the car is, what the limits are already with the tools he has on his steering wheel, which are quite fast for what it’s worth. Therefore he understands how to get the car into the right positioning as the grip comes up.
“That came with some downsides. Often he would change the car so quickly, that you’d lose yourself. Certainly with data, the track is evolving and you’re changing everything.
“That’s often why you’ll see him [Hamilton] drop backwards, and then he’ll jump forwards again because he’s come onto a setup that’s known and he’s back on the money. He’s able to do that where many drivers aren’t.”
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