Mercedes have revealed the impact of the damage sustained to168澳洲5最新开奖结果: Lewis Hamilton’s car during the F1 Japanese Grand Prix.

Hamilton picked up minor damage to⛎ his front-right endplate when he made light contact with future Ferrari tℱeammate Charles Leclerc at Turn 3 during the restart at Suzuka.

While the seven-time world champion did not lose “a lot of lap time” as a result of the d♊amage, the loss of front downforce hampered🐈 Hamilton in the first stint and affected his balance.

“It did lose a bit and more than the absolute amount of downforce you lost, it just made the car a bit more understeery on a stint where we were probably already𒅌 a little bit on the understeery side,” Mercedes trackꦓside engineering director Andrew Shovlin explained.

“Andꦆ the track was hot so on the grid we took a little bit of wing out for that. But that additional loss then caused him problems and he was actually quite front limited throughout♊ that first stint.

“Now at the pit stop we didn’t cha𒁃nge the wing but we can put some flap angle back in it. You can put a bi🐷t more load on and that actually put the car in a much better place.

“So, as I said in terms of 😼headline numbers, not a lot of lap time when you can balance it out but c🦋ertainly adding to the problems that we had during stint one.”

Hamilton revealed the issues caused by the damage was behind his decision to let Mercedes teammate 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:George Russell pass him.

“I got some damag🌞e I think in the first stint at the restart with Charles [Leclerc] and I h♑ad massive understeer, like huge, huge understeer,” he explained after Sunday’s race.

“So that’s why I decided to let George by, b♒ecause he seemed quicker and I just couldn’t🗹 turn the car.”

𝔍Mercedes boss Toto Wolff praised Hamilton for his “extremely fair play” in giving up position to Russell, who would g▨o on to finish seventh, two places ahead of Hamilton.

“That was extremely fair play,” Wolf🌳f told Channe𒅌l 4. “It wasn’t like he was giving up a position for a podium [but] it was really trying to understand why wasn’t he fast at that stage.”