Despite some media outlets ‘reporting’ that Lewis Hamilton’s tyre failure in Turkey could have been due to the fact that his teammate, Fernando Alonso, hid his data and caused Lewis to go for a too aggressive set up as a result, the real truth of the matter is a lot less scandalous.

In fact, it was simply a case of luck, bad luck, as our spies in Turkey explained, because the young rookie’s tyre problem could have happened to anyone that day, but instead, destiny picked on him. Due to the heat experienced at the Istanbul Park circuit, the right front tyre was forced to suffer extreme loads in corner 8, where drivers are turning to the left at between 240 and 250 kph for a duration of 7 seconds.

During the race, track temperature rose to 49 degrees and after the first series of pitstops, Bridgestone engineers discovered little holes on the tread of several right front tyres from various teams, something they called chunking, an expression which was, in reality, a bit misleading. The theory that the tread picked up rubber that then damaged the tyre, was wrong. In fact the holes were more or less burnt into the tread simply by overheating so therefore blisters would have been a better explanation to use.

Hamilton was unlucky in so far as he more than likely hit a kerb or a stone with one of these holes. When he braked for turn 9 the damaged tread could no longer stand the load and delaminated from the carcass. At the moment of braking, tyre pressure was already reduced by quite a margin, but it was not at zero.

Therefore, he ended up losing a tyre and the possibility of another podium finish, a place his teammate took instead.