Lewis Hamilton makes two big requests to bring ‘old school’ F1 back

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.

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“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.

“I think that gave them a real good cushion of bedding themselves into the sport and finding the limit as where, let’s say, like from Fernando [Alonso]’s time and before that, it was, you couldn’t go beyond the limit. You’re in the gravel.

“Pouhon, for example, Turn 10 in Spa, there used to be grass right beyond the kerb and gravel, which was definitely worrying when used to go into a corner like that.

“So I would say that’s been the biggest shift and it would be great to see the old school sort of way come back if possible. Gravel traps or something like that. Maybe not safe, but we’ll see.”

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