Ferrari risk losing Lewis Hamilton’s trust, warned former race strategist and current Sky F1 analyst, Bernie Collins, who claimed repeated errors make a driver doubt the team.
Hamilton was disqualified in China after his skid block was found to have worn away too much and, after an issue with strategy in Melbourne, Collins wonders when the calls will start to have a lasting impact.
Bernie Collins warns Ferrari of Lewis Hamilton trust loss
As strategist for Aston Martin, Collins spent many years gaining the trust of a driver and said that when Sebastian Vettel arrived, she wanted him to believe the team were good at their jobs so that he would follow their instructions.
“When Sebastian Vettel came to us at Aston Martin, I really wanted him to think we were good at our jobs,” Collins told Sky Sports.
“I really wanted him to go ‘if she calls me to pit, I’m going to do it’ because I trust the team. Now we have had a strategy thing, a radio thing and now disqualification, so it makes the driver unsure.”
Collins compared that to Hamilton’s current station at Ferrari who has had to endure challenges in his first two races.
“Lewis was really struggling in the car on Sunday and the car was illegal. The changes in set-up didn’t react in the way he wanted to, or he wouldn’t have been so slow in the race, and they’ve been illegal.
“So it is a bump. If they go through it and they find whatever’s wrong, then Lewis can get over that pretty quickly. But it’s one of these little things that adds to the lack of trust.”
As for how Ferrari ensure they are legal for the next race in Japan, Collins said that falls to one specific individual.
“Fundamentally, it’s the race engineer’s job [to ensure] that the car is legal. Each race engineer for each car, it lies with them that the car is legal.
“They will try and understand why it’s illegal in both instances, in the weight and plank wear. It would be lovely to know if Leclerc was legal on plank wear. We know Lewis’ car was legal on weight because all cars are checked on weight. We don’t know if Leclerc was legal on plank wear because his car was not checked for it.”
