Late change made to Canadian Grand Prix after Lewis Hamilton complaint

Lewis Hamilton led other Formula One drivers in helping to make a change to the Canadian Grand Prix course before Sunday's race.

It has yet again been not an easy season for Hamilton and Mercedes, with the driver failing to win a race last season for the first time in his career.

At the start of this year's campaign it didn't look likely that he'd add to his most recent win, the Saudi Arabia GP at the end of the controversial 2021 championship which Gareth Bale isn't over yet.

In Barcelona last time out there was some good news for both the seven time world champion and his team as they finished in second and third.

They'll be hoping that it's signs they can still win some races before the end of the year, especially with the 38-year-old yet to sign a new contract beyond December.

This weekend they managed to top the times during Friday's practice session ahead of the race in Montreal, before qualifying in third and fourth, thanks to Nico Hulkenberg's penalty.

Hamilton has already helped make a change to the course, after the FIA had initially extended the barrier on the run off to turn one.

It was to stop cars being out of control into turn two rejoining unsafely, leaving drivers with the choice to bounce across the grass or effectively doing a u-turn to get back onto the track.

According to Motorsport.com, Hamilton pointed out at the drivers' meeting on Friday that he'd never seen the type of accident that the new barrier was meant to stop, and the turn has now been reverted back to its original state.

An FIA spokesperson told Autosport: "The [original] change was done to avoid the possibility of a car going off at T1 and coming across the exit of T2 at speed and potentially t-boning another car.

"Following discussion with the drivers we are making the change to allow them to rejoin more easily and will refine this solution further for future events."

Hamilton driving around the Montreal track. Image: Alamy

Alex Albon and Yuki Tsunoda were amongst the drivers who had gone off the track at turn one during either the three practice sessions or qualifying before the change back was made.

"Everyone's mentioned it, it's so dangerous," the Japanese driver explained, "I think in the end the FIA understand as well, but I think also I understand their perspective as well, why they did it.

"Me and Lewis were saying the last 20 years it's been the same. There's definitely a good side of what they've done, obviously when someone had a massive brake failure or whatever, we can avoid a T-bone.

"But at same time more chances to overshoot the outside of Turn 1 and come back straight into Turn 2 which can lead to more T-bones as well."

Topics: Formula 1, Motorsport, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a journalist for SPORTbible with over eight years of experience. Passionate about all sports, he mainly covers football and F1 - Daniel Ricciardo once spent an entire interview referring to him as 'Ryan Gosling,' still his proudest moment.

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