Lewis Hamilton spent many years racing for Mercedes and working with race engineer Peter Bonnington who made what was perhaps an expected faux pas over the radio in Shanghai
It seems Mercedes are still adjusting to life after Lewis Hamilton. Peter ‘Bono’ Bonnington was the seven-time champion’s race engineer for many years at the Silver Arrows and now finds himself working with teenager Kimi Antonelli instead.
And old habits crept back in for the veteran engineer at the Chinese Grand Prix. During qualifying, in a radio message to Antonelli that was not broadcast on the world TV feed during the session, Bono was heard to accidentally call his new driver “Lewis”.
A clip of the incident has gone viral on social media in the hours after the conclusion of the session. In it, Antonelli is seen driving on track during qualifying when Bonnington replies to a message from the Italian teenager by saying: “Yeah, copy that, Lewis.”
The slip of the tongue came just a few hours after Hamilton won for the first time with his new team Ferrari. The Brit took victory in the Shanghai sprint race, converting pole position into the win.
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Among the many adjustments Hamilton has had to make since switching teams has been striking up a relationship with a new race engineer. After so many years of having Bonnington in his ear, he is now in regular contact with Riccardo Adami while behind the wheel.
In the days after Hamilton’s Ferrari move was announced, Mirror Sport revealed how a clause in his Mercedes contract prevented him from approaching Silver Arrows staff, including Bonnington, and asking them to follow him to Italy.
Later in the year, Bonnington ruled out altogether the prospect of continuing his working relationship with Hamilton. He signed fresh terms with Mercedes in a move which saw him promoted to head of race engineering, while also continuing to work directly with Antonelli this season.
Bonnington has worked for the Brackley-based team since 2006 – several years before it adopted its current Mercedes guise. He worked on Jenson Button’s side of the garage during the Honda and Brawn years before serving as race engineer to Michael Schumacher.
But at Ferrari, Hamilton can still benefit from the expertise of a race engineer with plenty of experience. Adami’s F1 career began in 2002 with minnows Minardi and he remained with the team after it was bought by Red Bull and rebranded to Toro Rosso.
There he worked with many drivers including Sebastian Vettel and Daniel Ricciardo. When he joined Ferrari in 2015, he linked back up with Vettel and later became race engineer to Carlos Sainz, whose seat Hamilton has inherited for this season.
