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Peter Bonnington, Lewis Hamilton’s career engineer, says the Brit is better off now than when the pair started working together in 2013.
Bonnington, better known as Bono, has been working with Hamilton since he joined the seven-time world champion. Mercedes in 2013. Since then, Hamilton has won six titles and has often talked about how important Bono has been to his success.
He won the sixth of them with a victory at the Turkish Grand Prix and, speaking to Sky sports after the race, Bono declared that he is now a better driver than he was seven years ago.
“Back then, it wasn’t as polished as it is now. Now today, just wow. Performances like today, the strength that he has just shines through, ”he said.
“Nobody can not be surprised by that performance. We know he has it in him, but when he delivers it you think ‘wow, I didn’t see it coming!
“I’m optimistic, but I didn’t see it happen like this. Midway through the race, once we were on the interstates we settled into a rhythm, it seemed like he had it completely under control.
“You can always tell on the radio, as soon as the voice goes into this nice calm state, you think ‘okay this is under control, let’s keep cutting.
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Bono himself was at Mercedes long before Hamilton, working with the only other driver to win seven World Championships, Michael Schumacher.
He says that working with German was a steep learning curve, and immediately moving to Hamilton after his retirement made him a better engineer.
“The Michael years gave me a learning ground, wow, it was a very steep learning curve, but going forward with Lewis, even then I still didn’t feel like he was probably worth negotiating with a world champion,” he added.
“But it’s just spending time with him and we’ve kept improving, downsizing year after year, trying to find what we can learn next.
Where can we find that next performance? He just accepts it, which is really cool. It’s what people probably don’t see, but it’s just that ability to learn and absorb the next thing. “
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