(Motorsport-Total.com) – The current Williams team principal James Vowles has once again praised Lewis Hamilton for how he dealt with the title loss at the 2021 season finale in Abu Dhabi. At the time, the Brit was still working as a strategy director at Mercedes and therefore experienced the controversial situation up close.
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To recall: Hamilton was leading the finale and was on course for his eighth world championship title when Williams driver Nicholas Latifi triggered a safety car phase with his crash. The then race director Michael Masi only allowed the cars between the Mercedes driver and title rival Max Verstappen to pass and restarted the race for the last lap.
Verstappen, who had gotten fresh tires during the safety car phase, was therefore able to overtake Hamilton and snatch the world championship title from him in the last lap. “I feel sorry for Lewis because that was something that was right in front of him,” Vowles recalls in a recent episode of “A Lesson With …” with Frankie Langan.
Vowles: Lewis Hamilton brought the team together
“That is, for me, what I took most from this situation: how he handled it as an athlete,” says the current Williams team principal. “I have also experienced situations where you simply cannot process what happened.”
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However, that was not the case with Hamilton, on the contrary: “He developed into one of the strongest leadership figures in the team and brought us all together in an extremely difficult time for us. He is a true champion, regardless of what happens on the track. He is a true champion.”
In the end, the reason for the lost world championship title does not lie solely in Abu Dhabi. “We must not forget that Red Bull and Max were very close and fighting for the championship,” Vowles knows. “And even if we exclude Abu Dhabi, he would have won the championship under these circumstances.”
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