The hidden side of Hamilton's record-breaking quest

For most people, judging the brilliance of Lewis Hamilton in Formula 1 comes down to a couple of hours of driving every other weekend. It's how he performs in those crunch final minutes of qualifying, and then what he can unleash on a Sunday afternoon when the red lights go out, that become a window into his qualities.

But to view what Hamilton does just in those moments would be to hugely underestimate the wider personal contribution to his own success. For while the most public display of his value does indeed come on race weekends, it's actually what goes on behind closed doors at the factory, or in private discussions with engineers, that can be even more critical to victory and championship success.

Hamilton has been central to driving Mercedes' development direction forward in the turbo hybrid era and making sure the car can be moulded to his requirements. It's a part of his role to see that the team is focusing its efforts in the right areas; not to be a passive link in the team chain that takes the glory on a Sunday before disappearing for two weeks. Ayrton Senna, Alain Prost and Michael Schumacher never did it that way.

The job of F1 world champion is an all encompassing one: and it's something Hamilton says is rarely appreciated by anyone outside the series.

"In terms of helping develop the car, that's something that I think that drivers - as I'm approaching where Michael was - I never fully understood," he explains. "Naturally I wasn't in the team, and it's difficult for someone starting in F1, for young drivers, to fully understand what it is that Michael did, what I am doing in this team.

"They'll just see that we have a good car, and just see that Michael had a good car. But now I'm here, I understand what Michael did with the team, or perhaps what he might have done with this team. I'm sure it's similar to what I've had to do. You know, you have to be the rudder.

"You have this powerful group of intelligent, impassioned people and of course you have the head of the team, which is the main rudder. But in terms of development, how to get the car to go further and work with the characteristics of the driver, that's my job. I'd say I'm definitely very, very proud of that. Unfortunately people don't get to see all that in the background."

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The job that Hamilton does manifests itself in two ways. Away from the track, it's the meetings with engineers, the visits to the factory and the questions he asks of the team that are all essential for keeping things moving forward.

"I always say to them: 'I'm so proud of you guys and it's important to enjoy the success, but also I want you to write down the critical things you think could be better this year'. And I do the same" Lewis Hamilton

"Generally every week I see the team or I have a Facetime or Zoom call with Bono [Peter Bonnington, Hamilton's race engineer] and the engineers," he says, when asked about the processes he goes through. "I ask for different people in the team to join those meetings. I'm always fully up to date with where the future car is and what the limitations are, and what they're trying to focus on.

"Sometimes I'll go to the windtunnel and ask them. I'll say to the head aerodynamicist: 'OK, take me round the car. I'm fascinated by what you guys are working on'. And they'll tell me the troubles and obstacles they've come across.

"And not so much now, but in the past, they might say: 'Oh, we're working on this area'. I'd say, 'but that's not the issue, what you working on that for?' They would reply that: 'We thought you wanted it...' So things can get lost in translation.

"Then during the winter, that's when I sit down with Bono and the guys, and I always say to them: 'I'm so proud of you guys and it's important to enjoy the success, but also I want you to write down the critical things you think could be better this year'. And I do the same. Then we share those and we put in place plans of what we can change in our dynamic in terms of doing it differently when there's more sessions together.

"We go through the lesser things too. We'll say, 'this aspect is less important, take that piece out because that just wastes five minutes. Let's put in things that are actually going to produce performance'."

At the track too, Hamilton has to take the lead in translating what the car is doing so the engineers can work on what needs to be improved. But it's not a one-way street of the engineers making all the calls of what to do: Hamilton has pushed them to take the car in directions that perhaps were not so obvious. Over recent years, for example, he has been instrumental in shifting the aero balance of the Mercedes to dial out some of the consequences that have come as part of the team's long wheelbase philosophy.

"I applied a lot of pressure on the team in terms of where I want the aero balance, for example," he says. "I have had them shift that since 2014. We have been shifting it bit-by-bit.

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"The team will have a simulation that will tell you what the best car is, but it can't do what I can do. It doesn't have the feeling also. But I've also had to do a lot of learning, I've challenged the guys a lot and there have been times when I have been wrong. But I'm totally fine with being wrong. That's a part of learning.

"But getting them to think out of the box and try different things, they've really moved in that direction. And then you have a good result or good race and you're like: 'See - if we're more open to ideas, even if it sounds crazy, let's be more like that moving forwards'. That's one of the elements that's helped us to continue to raise the bar because we have a better approach than perhaps they did before I was here, and perhaps we did when I started here."

The end result of Hamilton's mission to keep pushing and keep challenging is a W11 car that is more compliant to what he wants.

"With last year's car for example, we had the longest car," he says. "It's definitely been a bit of a surprise to see that. If you notice, none of the other teams have gone to the longest car. We've been winning with the longest car since 2017, and [the other teams] are so stuck in the way they do things and that 'we're still going to keep our car shorter'.

"Being that it's a long car, it's obviously got great downforce but it's not as nimble as a shorter car. Last year our car was good through medium and high speed corners, but was quite poor in low speed corners. The car would not rotate as well as we'd like.

"We started this year in winter testing and the car had similar characteristics. I had some challenges that I put towards the team in terms of how we set the car up which changed that. It's difficult to say too much but that difficulty we had last year with the car rotating, we don't have that problem any more."

And it is not about there being a silver bullet solution of a perfect set-up that suits Hamilton and unlocks a lot more lap time. It's a challenge that evolves, with moving targets that need to be overcome along the way to reach the end solution.

"I've always preferred a more positive front end in the car," explains Hamilton about what he wants from the car. "But there's a limitation with these tyres.

"I came into this season trying to make sure I kept the strengths but worked on the weaknesses. But in improving qualifying I have managed to improve the racing, which was a bit of a surprise. I was not expecting that" Lewis Hamilton

"The front has a limitation, the rear has a limitation, grip wise. There's saturation, there's thermal deg and there's only a certain amount you can do with the mechanical balance before it affects the other end. It's like a see-saw.

"Last year our car was definitely very, very strong at the rear and the car was generally driven by the rear end. The front was a lot more understeery last year. You struggled a lot more when you go over the tyre and no matter how much we put the mechanical rearwards, it wouldn't really fix it.

"This year we have made some changes. With the aero balance it's a much longer process. You can't just change it. Definitely over the winter we fixed it and moved the aero balance more rearwards, so the car was shifting different and also at different steering angles and different yaw. So it definitely is working a lot better."

One of the recurring themes of recent years has been how Hamilton has been able to consistently raise his game, despite each year feeling that he found new peaks to his potential. This season he has been better in qualifying, and sensational in the races. There was also no real early season period where he has taken time to get up to speed. He has been consistently strong.

It may be too much to suggest that Hamilton has had the perfect year, but 2020 has been a year where perhaps the biggest error - pitting when it was closed at Monza - was not all his doing.

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"It definitely feels like the most all-rounded highest level I've been at, yeah," he says. "It's a natural progression, naturally. You can't always get it right. This year, being as we've also had COVID, we've had more time to focus on areas of weakness. And I would say last year the racing was strong.

"Qualifying wasn't so great, and I came into this season trying to make sure I kept the strengths but worked on the weaknesses. But in improving qualifying I have managed to improve the racing, which was a bit of a surprise. I was not expecting that."

Asked why this season has appeared to be one of progression, Hamilton thinks that part of the answer could be the carry over of Pirelli's construction and compounds from last year to this.

"You could say it's because we've got the same tyres again," he says. "So my understanding just continues to evolve in terms of how you utilise those. As the years go on, and particularly this year, I have been able to invest in understanding the car more, understanding the technical side, understanding the set-up, and on the weekend there are so many things to change and you can easily miss things.

"Before you get to qualifying, you have to go through the lap and check all the diff settings. You're trying to cover as many bases as possible but sometimes things are missed and you almost run out of time when you get to qualifying. You're trying to make really quick decisions. This year I have been a lot more efficient with that and that comes down to communication with the guys I'm working with also."

It is safe to say that Hamilton's strength in understanding the tyres, and especially making them go further than many of his rivals can manage, has been a foundation of his recent success. It's a factor he says he has focused on since even before he got to F1.

"I've been conscious of it since GP2," he says. "If you look back at my race in Turkey in GP2, the things I applied in my driving technique back then, I use today. But looking after tyres is not just how you drive it, it's also what the team do. And it's been really interesting to see over the years I have been here.

"When I was at McLaren, I was always challenging things. At McLaren, I would challenge things in terms of how they prepare the tyres and tyre temperatures, and all these sorts of things. And they never ever listened. They just did their thing. When I joined this team, I had a lot of battles in wanting to try different things and just speaking.

"Any athlete that is at the top of their game, you could always say it is going to be hard to raise the bar. The easiest thing is to let it slip" Lewis Hamilton

"You can develop a set-up, but the tyres have a huge amount of time in them. So it's how do you get all the potential out of them on a single lap, but also in a long run? And there's things the car does that makes the tyres, both in set-up but also in the aero package, help look after the tyres."

Work, improve, repeat. It is a mantra for what Hamilton has done at Mercedes, as he has delivered peaks that few believed possible. But is he now at the summit of what he can influence and produce? He thinks not.

"Any athlete that is at the top of their game, you could always say it is going to be hard to raise the bar," he says. "The easiest thing is to let it slip.

"But it is not like I am new to this. I know what I need to do to get myself in the right head space and physically in the right place also. I don't really see it being an issue of keeping consistency, but it is much smaller increments in terms of raising the bar.

"I don't really know whether it can get any better. The racing, for example, is super-strong. But there are still elements that could be better. But not everything is easy to improve on."

Hamilton, though, is not someone who has ever been afraid of hard work.