Hamilton reveals Mercedes fix to avoid accidental ‘brake magic’ press repeat

The seven-time world champion accidentally struck the button - which alters brake bias - as he attempted to snatch the lead from Red Bull’s Sergio Perez at the restart of the race in Baku.

Hamilton's front-left tyre locked up under braking for Turn 1 and he subsequently shot down the escape road, dropping him out of the points and down to 15th, where he would go on to finish.

Hamilton suggested after the race that he had mistakenly re-activated the ‘brake magic’ button Mercedes has incorporated onto its steering wheel, something which was later confirmed by the team.

The system is used to help the drivers to generate tyre temperature ahead of key moments such as a Safety Car restart or standing start.

Mercedes revealed it would be looking at ways to address the problem and ahead of this weekend’s French Grand Prix, Hamilton confirmed that a “short-term” solution had been introduced.

“We haven't moved it, we've just put a shroud around it just to make sure that you can't accidentally touch it in future, but that’s for the short-term,” Hamilton explained.

“Obviously with the wheel, it’s not so easy to change or to move buttons, because it’s all designed in [a certain way]. So, we'll look for a longer term solution probably in the future.”

Hamilton said he did not consider the restart issue to be a mistake and insisted it was not down to pressure from main championship rival Max Verstappen.

“Max wasn’t in the race at the time, so it definitely wasn't under pressure from Max!” Hamilton said.

“And I don't even count it as a mistake. I don’t know what the one before that was. But I don’t feel any pressure, I feel pretty relaxed and you can’t always be perfect.

“A mistake is when you drive off the track through missing your braking point or hitting the wall.

“It was a kind of unforced error, but it’s something we had that was sitting there that could have happened at any point and it unfortunately bit us pretty hard. But we learned from the experience and we move forwards.”