After a rocky debut in Saudi Arabia, Pedro de la Rosa believes Lewis Hamilton will recover quickly strongly and compete at his strongest this year.
Lewis Hamilton will rebound from his difficult Saudi Arabian Grand Prix week, according to a former colleague, who believes the seven-time World Champion showed he is still “human” during the race in Jeddah.
Pedro de la Rosa, a former test driver for the McLaren squad whose tenure mostly overlapped with Hamilton’s, spoke about how the Briton demonstrated in Jeddah that he and his garage aren’t infallible.
For the first time since the 2017 season, Hamilton was eliminated in Q1, with the Mercedes racer simply lacking the speed to go to the second round of qualifying.
While Hamilton battled back to sixth place in the race, an untimely pit lane closure forced him to settle for tenth place on Sunday.
Hamilton “has proved to be human”
“I think that he proved to be human,” de la Rosa told the F1 Nation podcast when asked about Hamilton’s tough weekend in Saudi Arabia.
“He had a bad day in the office. I’m not saying a bad day driving in the office, but a bad day taking decisions in the office as well. They pushed it too hard on the set-up, and they went too far.
“He didn’t have the best of qualifying sessions as well. There were a lot of red flags and he had the Medium tyre initially, [that] he didn’t get up to temperature. I remember when he was told that George [Russell] was purple in [the first sector] and he was seven-tenths off already.
“I think that they panicked, they went onto the Soft tyre and the time was not coming. So he had a bad day in the office, [with] bad decisions really, but they were trying to explore the set-up – it’s part of the game.”
The Spaniard goes on to remark that even the greatest people would make mistakes from time to time, and that Saudi Arabia was a great reminder of that.
“We have seen Lewis, since 2007, always fighting for Q3, the top five, and we think that’s going to last forever,” he said.
“But, if things are not right, at a demanding track like Jeddah, even the best struggle. This is the beauty of F1. It was unusual, but how well he recovered was also really, really nice to see in the race.”
Hamilton is a superb team player because of his maturity
With Mercedes appearing to be up against it, and Red Bull and Ferrari now leading the Formula One standings after two impressive races, de la Rosa believes this year will perform to the best in Hamilton.
“I think that he’s proven to be extremely mature,” he commented about how Hamilton might respond to an uncompetitive season.
“His reaction to the beginning of the season, how he scored points in both races – even if it’s only a 10th – just proves that he’s pushing as hard as ever.
“When he made it to the podium in Bahrain, I haven’t seen him as happy as that [since] he was World Champion.
“We’ve seen Lewis win many Grands Prix where he hasn’t been as pleased, as happy as he was with the third position in Bahrain. So this just proves that he’s a team player.”
De la Rosa notices Hamilton’s apology.
Hamilton’s apology to his crew for failing to reach the qualifying cut, according to De la Rosa, was especially telling.
“We will see the best out of him during this season, we are seeing a guy that is fighting,” he added.
“He’s one of the unique drivers, or one of the only drivers that I’ve seen, saying, ‘I’m sorry’, to the team. A seven-time World Champion apologising to the team after qualifying!
“All I’m saying is that I love racing drivers that are critical with themselves. They are not blaming their equipment every now and then. Lewis is one of them, and he will come back – he’s as motivated as ever.
“Imagine that they don’t win again this year, for whatever reason. He will still stick with the team and become a great team player.”
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