Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Hamilton in dark over tyre pressures

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Lewis Hamilton says he had no knowledge of the tyre pressure investigation which could put his victory in jeopardy when being told to push late on in the Italian Grand Prix.

The championship leader had a comfortable advantage with five laps to go after a dominant display, but was then told by Mercedes he needed to build a gap in the closing laps. A technical delegate's report was then released stating both Mercedes cars had tyre pressures under the minimum starting pressure specified by Pirelli on the grid.

When asked after the race if he had any comment on the situation, with Mercedes having been called to the stewards, Hamilton said: "Not really, no ... I wasn't aware of it."

Asked what difference such a discrepancy in tyre pressure would have, Hamilton replied: "0.3 [PSI] lower? Not really a huge amount on one rear tyre."

Sebastian Vettel finished second in the race, a little over 25 seconds behind Hamilton, and defended the double world champion.

"It's difficult to judge now, because I don't know what was going on," Vettel said. "I think it's not fair to hammer questions at Lewis because he doesn't know what's going on. So that's that. In principle the tyres last a bit longer, but it's a lot about respect and fairness. He did a very good job today, we have to respect that."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.