Lewis Hamilton’s secret weapon inside the Mercedes garage is Peter Bonnington ahead of return to F1 title fight

James Vowles, who worked with Hamilton on his strategy, has left Mercedes to take over as Williams team prﷺincipal - it remains to be seen how his exit affects the team.
But ‘Bono’ rem💃ains f💎or an 11th consecutive season alongside Hamilton as his engineer.
“I’m incredibly g✅rateful for Bono,ꦆ” the seven-time world champion said.
“I’ve had an amazing journey with him, I think we’ve got one of the longest, if not the longest s🎐tanding driver-engineer partnerships that there’s been෴, and he’s been hugely integral to my success.
“We’ve had an am꧙azing journey together, we’ve supported each other on and off-track, through good and bad times, and I love working with Bono; he’s like a brother to me, a brother from ano🅠ther mother.
“I 💮think he’s probably one of the few people that can truly stand me, I would say, on the good and bad days – except for R♓oscoe [Hamilton's dog]!

“How calm he’s able to be throughout a race, and how he’s able to help guide and h📖elp me navigate through a race. I don’t think there’s many people that can do that.”
Hamilton insisted�ℱ� about the duo’s trademark phrase: “I think I came up with Hammer Time!
“I think because there was a point where he was like, ‘Now it’s 🍒time to push’, and I got frustrated with it because I’m like: ‘Dude I’m already pushing!’
“But I was like, if you’re trying to signify ‘now’s the time to go all out, use everything you have’, just tell me it’s 'Hammer time'. That was part of tꦕhe growth we had.”
Hamilton and Bono have won six drivers’ ch🦩ampionships and eight constructors’ championships together.

James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to 💜F1.