The closed-door message Lewis Hamilton gave Mercedes in Abu Dhabi debrief

In the wake of a dismal qualifying session in Abu Dhabi, Lewis Hamilton did everything in his power to motivate Mercedes to perform better.

Since Hamilton was eliminated in the first qualifying round in Abu Dhabi, the seven-time Formula One World Champion was preparing himself for a challenging last race with Mercedes. However, the technical director of the team, James Allison, has revealed how Hamilton attempted to get his team back on track after the challenging outcome.

The debriefing message that Lewis Hamilton sent to Mercedes is communicated by James Allison.
Since Hamilton was destined to begin the race from a position that was quite close to the back of the grid, he utilized an unconventional counter-strategy on Sunday by beginning the race on the hard tyre and then switching to the medium tyre for his second stint.

Hamilton would go on to finish in a remarkable fourth place, catching and passing his Mercedes colleague George Russell with a daring round-the-outside maneuver on the very final lap of the race.

Hamilton had refused to be overly pessimistic about the possibility of a poor final race with the team he has raced with for the previous 12 years, according to Mercedes’ technical director James Allison, who was conducting the normal post-race debriefing. Allison was analyzing the race when he provided this information.

The Mercedes driver ran over a track bollard that had been dislodged by Kevin Magnussen when the Haas driver was attempting to stay out of Hamilton’s path on the final run. “Qualifying was a difficult time for Lewis in this event with his run-in with the bollard,” Allison said of the incident that cost Hamilton dearly. Magnussen had been trying to keep Hamilton out of his way.

When we were down in the mouth, he was telling us, “Look, put your chins up, we’re going to make the most of tomorrow and remember all the times when we’ve got this right together.” He was upset, and we were even more unhappy for him. However, in the debriefing that took place following the event, when we were feeling down in the mouth, he was telling us both of these things.

“I believe that is how it gives me the impression. Recently, we have experienced some challenging seasons; but, throughout the duration of this relationship, no other driver-team alliance has even come close to matching what we have accomplished together. It has been a tremendous run for all of us, and we could not wish him more well than we did on that final day together.

An attempt was made by Allison to summarize the emotions that Mercedes is experiencing as the team located in Brackley says goodbye to the driver with whom it has won six Drivers’ Championships over the course of the last ten years. Allison stated that such a feat would be “very difficult.”

“We would of course love this entire season, let alone the last race, to be more of a fairy tale ending to a partnership that has set all the benchmarks in Formula 1,” he said. “Not only would we love it, but we would truly love it.”

It would have been appropriate if we had been able to finish on the podium, or even better, if we had been able to finish on the top step, but unfortunately, that happened not to be.

“Having said that, I believe that Lewis and the team could not have handled it any better, and I believe that this is a huge credit to the respect that exists between Lewis and the team, as well as the enormous amount of gratitude that we have for everything that we have accomplished together.”