Hamilton wing was broken on first lap

[TheStig]

Lewis Hamilton's front wing was broken early in the first lap of the Bahrain Grand Prix, photographs of his car prove, as mystery surrounds suggestions that his second-lap collision with Fernando Alonso was down to an unexpected mechanical failure.

McLaren told autosport.com today that they stand by their explanation that the upper front wing of Hamilton's car broke two seconds before he ran into the back of Alonso on lap two at Bahrain.

They claim the breakage led to a sudden loss of downforce, which sucked Hamilton into Alonso's slipstream much quicker that he was likely anticipating.

The team suspect that the wing breakage was caused as the result of a collision Hamilton made with another car, believed to be Alonso, at Turn Four on the opening lap.

The team's F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh said in a statement issued by the team: "It was only when I went into the engineers' room and started looking at the details that I realised Lewis's upper front wing had disappeared about two seconds before the accident, so he suddenly lost downforce."

However, onboard footage of Hamilton's car suggests that the bridge wing had broken, and parts of it flew off, as he exited Turn Four on the opening lap.

The damage has also been confirmed in photographs of Hamilton's car on the opening lap, clearly showing that the bridge wing was damaged early on.

Hamilton has already put the accident with Alonso down to a simple racing incident, and it is possible that the already broken wing could have affected his car's handling and drag levels.

With Alonso appearing to have a messy exit from Turn Two on the second lap, it is possible that Hamilton closed in on his rival much quicker than he expected, and was caught out as he tried to move around his rival.

Speaking after the race about what happened in the Alonso crash, Hamilton said: "I was behind him I went to move to the right and he went to move to the right as well and I ended up on the back somehow. It's racing."

By Jonathan Noble
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/66487

TheStig

[Dare]

Every time Hamilton seems to make a mistake Mcclaren
always find it's a mechanical error and no fault of their
wonder boy.

Whats going to happen when Heikki continues to
best him,maybe Alonso wasn't all to blame over
the team mate wars at Mcclaren last year

[Alianora La Canta]

Two things do not help McLaren's cause:

1) This was announced after Lewis admitted culpability for his error
2) The most likely cause of a first-lap bridge brake was... ...Lewis Hamilton hitting Fernando Alonso in the first corner (animated GIF)!

[romephius]

Just goto www.formula1.com and click on the Bahrain review video, it shows in great detail the first impact that broke the bridge wing, and then it shows the bridge ripping away from the car and then the impact into Alonso.

Rom

[Scott]

Absolutely!  That's pretty clear...although I still think my idea of Lewis not realizing just how slow the Renault actually is has merit too