Lewis Hamilton crashed during his second Ferrari test (Image: Getty)
David Coulthard has raised an interesting theory about ’s testing crash at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, suggesting that muscle memory from his time at may be to blame.
The Brit enjoyed his first test with his new team, , at the squad’s Fiorano facility near Maranello, but his second outing for the Scuderia was less successful. During a TPC (testing of previous cars) run in Barcelona, he suffered a ‘minor’ crash, causing enough damage to disrupt the afternoon’s running.
Testing crashes are not an uncommon occurrence, and Hamilton suffered trips into the barriers during the off-season ahead of his debuts with both and , too. In this instance, the 40-year-old walked away unscathed, but the incident did stop from running Charles Leclerc’s test in the same car later that day.
No explanation for the crash was given by , but former F1 star Coulthard has raised his own theory. “Going off is an occupational hazard,” he said on his Formula For Success podcast.
“And it doesn’t matter if you were the late great Ayrton Senna, Michael Schumacher or the current driver , we can all have an off at any certain point. And I see it as simple as this: he has to get used to the control systems in that , the power delivery.
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David Coulthard has explained his Hamilton theory (Image: Getty)
“We’re dealing with hybrid engines, so it’s not the sort of natural torque acceleration of an internal combustion engine. Electrical energy comes in like that. And I suspect it was just he’s so embedded in his mind about the hybrid Formula One engine that he was simply caught out.
“But that’s exactly why I agree with you that it’ll take a few races because there’s testing that a driver does where you are very consciously going through the ABCs of the braking, the turn in, the throttle application. You’re in that space because you’re developing the car and giving the feedback to the engineers.
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“And then, of course, there’s racing, where you are just instinctively seeing and doing. You’re logging away what the car is doing on lap five or lap 10, or all of the good things that you need to do to continue to give the feedback, but it’s just your instinctive self when you’re in a grand prix. So there’s two different elements of being a race driver.”
Thankfully for Hamilton, his shunt in Barcelona was not his final track running before pre-season. The Brit set over 100 laps alongside team-mate Leclerc and the two drivers during a two-day Pirelli tyre test at the same circuit earlier this week.