Lewis Hamilton said he would like to see manual gearboxes
return to Formula 1 one day, alongside “old school” gravel traps.
Hamilton took
the wheel of childhood hero Ayrton Senna’s 1990 McLaren MP4/5B in the wet at
Interlagos at the weekend, with a H-pattern manual gearbox to handle as he
fulfilled a long-held dream of his.
Lewis Hamilton wants manual gearboxes and ‘old school’
gravel back in Formula 1
Having went on to drive Senna’s McLaren later in the
weekend, a moment he would describe as being the “greatest honour of my
career”, he explained the difference in sensation in driving with a manual
gearbox compared to the semi-automatic paddle-shift gearboxes the drivers
handle now.
Asked ahead of the weekend in Brazil about how his
heel-and-toe braking technique is currently, given he would be driving a full
manual gearbox and current Formula 1 cars utilise left-foot braking, he replied
with a smile: “I’m always heel and toeing, so it should be!
“No, it used to be really good when I was younger, and
when I did the [McLaren] MP4/4, I was able to do it back then.
“It’s something I miss – I wish we had that in Formula 1. I
mean, the two-pedal thing is just not exciting, and they need to bring back the
H-Box. It was awesome.”
Later in the same press conference, the seven-time World
Champion was asked if the sport has become more ‘aggressive’ since he joined
the grid, and while he did not believe that to be the case, there was one
aspect of Formula 1 he believes to be different – which he would like
addressing, if it’s safe to do so.
“I think the only difference is that the tracks now have
these run-off areas,” he said.
“I think when I joined, we didn’t have these big run-off
areas, so when you first get in, you really had to build up to the limit.
“You couldn’t go beyond it, go off track and come back on – and that’s something I would say the thing I noticed the most, so for example, around maybe Max [Verstappen]’s time or maybe just before, where they started having these big run-off areas, where the younger drivers were able to come in and really abuse those areas and not put the car on grass, for example.
