26/10/2018
NEWS STORY
Speaking ahead of this weekend's Mexican Grand Prix - at which he is odds-on to secure his fifth title - Lewis Hamilton has revealed the issues that compromised him in Austin last week, thereby preventing him from claiming the crown a week earlier.
On the morning of the race, the team noticed an issue with Valtteri Bottas' water pump, and as a precaution changed the pumps on both cars.
As well as having to increase rear tyre pressures on the orders of Pirelli, the team opted not to use its controversial wheel rims which aid rear axle cooling.
"They took the car apart in the morning, and when they put it back together, the car was unbalanced," Hamilton told reporters. "So a massive cross-weight issue, it was something like 50 kgs, which was massive.
"So the right-front and the left-rear would take all the weight, and the car would not turn through the left hand corners," he continued. "It felt very strange out there. It felt like I had a massive tailwind or something when I was going through places like Turn 19, through the right-handers it was a little better. But there are not a lot of right-handers at that track. I think if we hadn't had that problem it would have been a much different race."
Check out our Friday gallery from Mexico City, here.