Mercedes reveal what it will ‘miss’ from Hamilton

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has detailed what the team will miss about Lewis Hamilton when he departs for Ferrari at the end of the F1 season. The 50-year-old believes the Brackley-based squad will feel the British driver's absence in a number of ways, including his "feel for what the car needs" and the value it brings to the "development process". Having joined the Brackley-based squad in 2013, the Hamilton will leave after (at least) 84 grand prix victories, six drivers' titles and eight constructors' championships. Given the level of success enjoyed over the past 11-and-a-half seasons together, the 39-year-old's exit will undoubtedly be felt by the German marque. "I'll miss him [Hamilton] as a character, because he's good fun to work with," replied Shovlin to select media when asked by RacingNews365 what he and Mercedes will miss about the seven-time drivers' champion from an engineering perspective.  "His race pace has been extremely good, but what he brought to the team is an awful lot of speed and a good feel for what the car needs.  “And he is very good at highlighting where the weaknesses are in the car."

Aside from his ability to help set up a car, however, Shovlin explained it was hard to pinpoint exactly what the void of Hamilton's Ferrari move would mean for Mercedes' engineering team. The British driver has become known as somewhat of a tyre whisperer over this time at the eight-time constructors' champions. He often used radio messages as a decoy against other teams, telling race engineer Pete Bonnington they were short on life, only to extend the stint and retain strong pace. This is one of the areas Shovlin feels the team will miss Hamilton, and in turn, what downstream impact that has on the ability to develop and upgrade through the season - something Mercedes has become accustomed to doing during the contemporary ground effects era. "It's difficult to say what we would miss specifically from an engineering point of view," Shovlin adds. "Other than he just has this innate feel for what the cars doing, what the tyres are doing - and that's very valuable when you feed that into the development process."