Hamilton worried by 'pretty dangerous' pit entry

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Lewis Hamilton wants the FIA to look at changing the pit box entry for Mercedes, describing the current layout at Interlagos as "pretty dangerous".

Mercedes is first in the pit lane this weekend in Brazil, meaning the drivers can have a straight run into their pit box when returning to the pits. However, with a short hill at the pit entry, the Mercedes appeared to bottom out if cresting the hill having already turned towards the garage, and Hamilton hopes the FIA will be able to make a change.

“It’s quite dangerous because as you come up the hill then there’s a massive hump and I’ve pretty much come up, come in and pretty much been airborne for a split second and if you’re not careful you could end up in the garage or even hurt somebody, because we come in quite quickly," Hamilton said.

"I’m not really sure why they’ve done that but hopefully Charlie [Whiting] will be having a look.”

Speaking before the driver briefing at Interlagos, Hamilton said he is worried he may struggle to control the car when approaching his pit crew.

“I don’t know, I mean I’ll bring it up in the drivers briefing but it’s pretty dangerous. I don’t really know or understand why they moved us down but our pit entry is quite dangerous so I’m just lucky I haven’t bowled everyone out of the way so far.”

UPDATE: On Saturday morning, Mercedes confirmed its pit box has been move five metres further down the pit lane in order to avoid the bump, with each subsequent team moving by a successively smaller amount (Ferrari by four metres, Williams by three metres, Red Bull by two metres and Force India by one metre).

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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.