Once Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel collided and gave the McLaren duo the chance to go 1-2 in the race, Hamilton was instructed from the pits to save fuel. Asking his race engineer Phil Prew whether his teammate would pass him once he'll switch to fuel-saving mode, the latter responded “No”. However, only a few corners later, the reigning world champion pulled an overtaking maneuver over Ham, which reacted quickly to retake the lead.
Talking about that incident, Whitmarsh said that Prew was simply sharing his personal opinions with Hamilton, rather than suggest Button was prohibited from passing the 2008 F1 champion. Consequently, he ruled out recent claims that team orders came into play in the last section of the Istanbul race.
“Shortly after he was told that Jenson wouldn't overtake him, Jenson did overtake him. Phil gave an opinion to Jenson and as it turned out that his opinion was wrong. Simply as that. They are racing drivers and they both had a challenge in that race from the outset,” said Whitmarsh in a Vodafone phone-in in Tuesday, according to Autosport.
“The race was a bit quicker than expected. So we were consuming more fuel than we needed to. So we had to find ways to save fuel. Inevitably there's a dilemma as you get to the end of a race about how hard you can race. I think we've had it amply demonstrated that a team and its drivers can get that wrong, but there is no doubt that both of our racing drivers want to win and they were being told to look after fuel.”
“But as a consequence of that Phil Prew had the opinion that Jenson wouldn't overtake. Clearly that opinion was probably a wrong one. But I don't think it expected that Lewis would lift as much in Turn 8 and for Jenson, who is a racing driver, when he saw quite big lift in Turn 8 he thought it was his opportunity, he lined up and subsequently made the pass,” added the McLaren boss.
Google News