Lewis Has Tyre Puncture In Turkey
September 4th, 2007Lewis Hamilton’s tyre punctured in the Turkish Grand Prix and caused him to fall from third to fifth.
I think this was unfortunate because third place was looking certain and he would have extended his lead over Alonso, his closest competitor points-wise.
Here’s what Lewis had to say:
It was really unfortunate, all of a sudden I saw some bits started flying off the tyre and it blew, and I was quite fortunate I didn’t put it in the gravel. It was a little bit unfortunate but still we did a good job. The team did a fantastic job all weekend.
We had the pace of the Ferrari’s I think, but when you’re behind them you lose a bit of downforce and I think we were just matching them for the majority of the race.
We still got points.
It’s just a little bit of a problem,
You always have setbacks. We won the last race and we’ve still got five to go.
We’re still leading by five points, so it’s not over, don’t worry.
I couldn’t stop the car, so that wheel was locked and I think the rear wheel was coming up.
So it was extremely tricky, especially as [it's easy to] break their front wing or break the suspension, so I had to try not to go too quick but get back as soon as possible without losing too many places.
I got fifth, so with that problem I think it was a good job.
I did think that the front wing would be broken and I don’t know why we didn’t change it – I think it would have taken too much time.
It really made a huge difference as I had huge under-steer and I couldn’t get round corners, so I couldn’t challenge the BMW [of Nick Heidfeld].
