Mercedes have revealed Lewis Hamilton hit the ground with a force of 45G following his opening-lap contact with Fernando Alonso at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Hamilton was trying to pass Alonso around the outside of Les Combes having slipstreamed his rival down the Kemmel Straight.
As he turned in to the corner, Hamilton’s rear-right wheel went over the top of Alonso’s front-left and it pitched all but the front-left wheel of Hamilton’s car high into the air before he landed on all four wheels again and drove on until he had to retire the car later in the lap.
Mercedes’ motorsport strategy director James Vowles explained the true scale of the crash in a video issued by the team.
“It was a large, large impact,” he said. “It was measured at 45G on the [safety data recorder] in the car which is very big on a vertical load,” he said.
“He will be okay, he will be back in Zandvoort fighting. I think primarily for him he is frustrated, frustrated that he had a very fast race car and a podium was possible. But he, like all of us, are here to fight and continue moving forward.
The team is still investigating the extent of the damage to Hamilton’s car and power unit.
“There is enough photos floating around the internet to show just how high the car was and how it landed and the impact was large,” Vowles added.
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“What we noticed almost immediately after the impact on the ground was a loss of coolant. You can actually see on the onboard of Alonso that coolant really just flying out towards him and then you started to see temperatures rise fairly quickly and that was the primary reason for stopping him on track.
“It will now take a few days to review all the components. Clearly there is going to be overloads to the suspension components and gearboxes and we need to make sure to understand the full extent of what’s required before Zandvoort.”
The hit was not easy on Hamilton either, who was summoned to the circuit medical centre but initially refused to go and was given a formal warning by the race stewards. He said he “nearly broke my back” in the impact.
Pictures: Hamilton’s collision with Alonso at Spa
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