Mercedes Technical Director James Allison has hailed Lewis Hamilton as “astonishing” after his first season working with the Briton and helping him to a fourth Formula 1 world title.
Allison made the move to the German manufacturer at the start of the season, returning to the paddock after leaving Ferrari by mutual consent last year following the tragic loss of his wife, and cited the opportunity to work alongside Hamilton as one of the reasons he wanted to join.
A compliment, given the number of champions Allison has previously teamed up with, including Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher, something which also makes him an ideal person to assess the individual qualities of each driver.
“He’s got, as you can imagine, far more in common with the other great champions than things that are different,” he told Autosport of the 32-year-old. “His hunger to win, even after being on the right end of nearly all the records in the sport, is just astonishing.
“The most remarkable thing about him is just his raw, raw speed. You don’t get all those pole positions without being a pretty special controller of the car. I think I’m very lucky to work with a whole bunch of very good people, but his ability on a Saturday is second to none and he rarely drops the ball on race day having put it on pole on Saturday.”
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This season would see Hamilton surpass Schumacher as the driver with the most poles in F1 history, now with 72, but it wasn’t just his approach in the good times which impressed Allison.
“When we screw up, and we have done on a number of occasions this year – most notably the headrest incident in Baku – he’s been completely and utterly calm and reasonable about it, even though the points swing created by an event like that is big,” he commented.
“Similarly, when we were forced to ask him to take a gearbox penalty in Austria, same deal — it just didn’t faze his approach to the weekend. Those are nice things when a driver’s like that.”
