Lewis Hamilton says he called for Mercedes to retire him from the German Grand Prix because he wanted to save mileage on his engine and gearbox.

The Mercedes driver called for a pit stop and told the team “retire the car” after he spun at turn one on lap 52 of the race.

Hamilton, who was unwell during the race weekend, admitted he had made the call partly because he “wasn’t feeling great”, but said his main priority was to save his engine and gearbox life.

“Mostly it was just thinking ‘OK, I’m dead last’,” he said. “I calculate the chances of me getting points and I think about how many races have we got left to do on this engine. I think could I save it with another 15 laps left of engine mileage? I can save the gearbox.”

He had fallen to 15th place and was 38 seconds behind the last car in the top 10 after his spin and pit stop.

“I start thinking of those kind of things and I’m like ‘don’t feel bad if you feel like pulling me in, guys’,” he explained. “But they said don’t, keep going, so I kept going. So that’s how I’m always thinking.”

Hamilton said he also reduces the number of laps he does in practice sessions to reduce how much he uses his engines.

“They say ‘you’ve got 23 laps in practice one’, I’ll do 20. But they’ll also say ‘no, we’ve calculated that you can do 23 laps, or even 24 laps, we’ve proven out the engine’. I’m still cautious.

“I’ll do 20, 21 just to make sure that when, for example, you come to a race and you have to go back to another engine, in some cases you do because it comes back out of the pool, usually I have less mileage on my engine than the other driver. Hopefully I won’t have any mishaps with the engine. So that’s what I’m conscious of, always.”

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Lewis Hamilton’s team radio after his lap 52 spin

To Hamilton: Hamilton presses the ‘pit’ button

We have your pit confirm Hamilton: Let’s stop To Hamilton: OK Lewis so box, box for new soft tyres. Let us know if you need a flap adjust. Hamilton: Retire the car. To Hamilton: Negative Lewis, negative. There’s always opportunities. To Hamilton: Hamilton pits

So Lewis live pit stop we’ll go again. Another late Safety Car could give us an advantage.

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2019 F1 season