Mercedes debunk Hamilton misconception with 'surprising' discovery

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has revealed Lewis Hamilton was heading towards a puncture in the Qatar Grand Prix before Valtteri Bottas hit Alexander Albon's discarded wing mirror.

In doing so, the Stake driver strew debris across the start/finish straight, with Hamilton and Carlos Sainz seen with deflated tyres soon after. 

The safety car was quickly deployed at that point, but the damage was already done. However, it now appears the seven-time F1 drivers' champion was losing left-front tyre pressure already, meaning the original belief was more a case of correlation - or rather coincidence - than causation.

"We have the video data, we can see exactly when that mirror got smashed, when it got broken into a lot of pieces," explained Shovlin. "We have also got the on-car data, and we are measuring the pressure in the tyres live.

"Surprisingly, we can see Lewis start to lose pressure prior to the mirror being hit by Valtteri.

"We would therefore say it is unlikely that it was a debris puncture. That was certainly what we thought at the time because the two appeared to be almost simultaneous."

However, Shovlin was quick not to rule out debris as a factor, highlighting that Hamilton may have damaged the tyre elsewhere on the Lusail International Circuit and potentially not merely as a result of excessive wear.

The British engineer stressed the need to wait for Pirelli to present its findings before ultimately reaching a decisive conclusion.

"It does not mean that he did not pick up some debris elsewhere, but we need to wait for Pirelli to do their analysis and their investigations," the 51-year-old added.

"They will do a lot of detailed checks on all the tyres, trying to understand if there is any deterioration. As a huge amount of load goes through the front left around Qatar.

"There were also bits of the tyre that were wearing quite heavily. And again, that is linked to the fact that you have these super-fast corners that are flat out at nearly 300 kilometres an hour. Once we get that analysis, we will understand a bit."