Mercedes will make changes to Lewis Hamilton’s dash layout after he lost time to his Formula 1 team-mate Valtteri Bottas during the virtual safety car in the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
Hamilton said immediately after the race that he would be requesting changes, but did not go into detail on why they might be necessary.
In a team video released on Wednesday, Mercedes chief strategist James Vowles explained that Hamilton had “lost sight” of the required delta time under the VSC.
This was because the team had asked him to make switch changes on his steering wheel that were intended to give him a performance boost at the restart.
“During the VSC at the end of the race, you would’ve seen Lewis lose a couple of seconds of race time relative to Valtteri, which could’ve been crucial to the win,” Vowles explained.
“When the VSC ends, the driver gets a notification on his screen on his dash and that’s something that we have the ability to control – what’s displayed and what’s not.
“We asked Lewis to do a number of switch changes, which is normal to put the car into a [better] performant mode. But, with every change he lost sight of what that delta time was.
“The other factor that was contributing here was that if you are in a straight line, for example Turn 16, [or] long straight, and the VSC ends all you have to do is manage the throttle and get on throttle and go straight.
“But, Lewis wasn’t. He was in a braking zone for a VSC, one of the most difficult situations because now it is very difficult to modulate where you are on the delta time and get ready for the VSC restart.
“A combination of all of that put together means that Lewis didn’t make a mistake, it was where he was on track and a number of switch changes that just masked where he was on the exact delta time and he lost around two seconds.
“We, from our side, can do some more work to make that certainly better in terms of a dash display going forward into Barcelona and we will do.
“[It’s] the luck of the draw as to where you are in the VSC, unfortunately that will always be the same way.”