LEWIS HAMILTON 'SAVED PHOTOS ON HIS PHONE' IN BID TO HELP MERCEDES GAIN RED BULL SECRETS

has allegedly revealed he took his own photos of Sergio Perez's car while it was being flown in the air by a crane at the Monaco Grand Prix and will be 'looking at them very closely'. It ended up being another win for Red Bull at the weekend as Max Verstappen led from start to finish in a dramatic race.

It was a different story completely for Perez though, whose weekend was wrecked after he crashed out of qualifying on Saturday. Just a few hours before, Hamilton had also crashed at the end of the third and final free practice session.

Mercedes were left perplexed as to why the crane was brought in to lift the W14 in the air for everyone to take a closer look at the floor of the car. And Red Bull were similarly confused when the same situation happened following Perez's crash with the RB19 being hoisted into the sky with photographers lining up to take pictures for the world to see.

But professional photographers were not the only ones taking photos of the underbelly of the Red Bull, it has been claimed. Chequered Flag podcast host Rosanna Tennant revealed a brief conversation she had with Hamilton at the weekend where the Brit admitted he too had taken photos to take back to Mercedes to analyse.

"Lewis Hamilton was joking with me that he's saved the photos of the floor of the Red Bull on his phone, and he'll be looking at them very closely, zooming in," Tennant said. Teams are unable to hide the developments they bring in on the body of the car with rivals able to examine them closely on a weekly basis.

But the underbody aerodynamics are much more secretive with there usually no way for teams to take a look at what their opponents are doing differently on the bottom of their cars. Andrew Shovlin didn't seem too fussed about the Mercedes floor being exposed, insisting Red Bull would be the team most upset.

He said: "I suspect they're probably more annoyed at their car being left in the sky than we would be about ours." Aston Martin performance director Tom McCullough claimed everyone in the paddock was "very excited" about the free look at Perez's car.

He said: "Obviously, there are some great photos! A lot of people were there so I'm sure the aerodynamicists will be having a good look at all the cars that were lifted up. "Thankfully, ours hasn't been lifted up yet. Let's try and keep it that way!

"The aerodynamicists never want you to show that. You learn a lot from just even how the plank is wearing. You learn from what's touching. There's a lot of very excited aerodynamicists up and down the pitlane looking at all of that."

2023-05-29T12:40:03Z dg43tfdfdgfd