© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
At the 2019 Autosport Awards Lewis Hamilton won the International Racing Driver of the Year, while Mercedes’s 2019 car won the Racing Car of the Year Award.
Hamilton and Mercedes’ fantastic year, where they won both the Drivers’ and Constructors’ championship, just got even better as both claimed two prestigious Autosport Awards at the ceremony held last night in London.
Hamilton won the Racing Driver of the Year Award, his seventh in the category. The Briton beat IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden, Audi’s DTM driver Rene Rast and two-time Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne. Hamilton was not present to accept the award, as he is preparing for a ride swap with MotoGP’s Valentino Rossi, but he recorded a message for the attendees.
“I want to apologise for not being here tonight, but thank you to Autosport and my fans,” said Hamilton.
“It’s an honour to get this Award, I hope everyone has an amazing Christmas and New Year and that everyone strives for greatness and never gives up.”
The car that helped Hamilton achieve his amazing 2019 results – the Mercedes W10, was crowned Racing Car of the Year. The car that won 15 out of 21 grand prix beat the Audi RS5 DTM, the British Touring Car Championship’s BMW 330i M Sport and Formula E’s DS E-Tense FE19.
Williams co-founder and former technical director Sir Patrick Head presented the award to Mercedes’ chief designers Phil Prew and John Owen.
“There’s no real secret [to our success], just hard work between Brackley and Brixworth, understanding each other’s plants,” said Prew.
Owen continued: “Start of the season I thought it would be [closer]. I think some people had us down as third-fastest, and it was exciting and we thought it would be a tough year.
“We were as shocked as anyone else in Melbourne, I told our guys not to get used to it! Then we won the next and the next one.
“We’ve had fantastic racing, let’s not forget that.
“We saw Moment of the Year Award earlier and Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen were fantastic [in their Austrian Grand Prix battle],” concluded Owen.
Source: motorsport.com
