Mercedes have revealed the impact of the damage sustained to168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史: 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 teammate Charles Leclerc at Tur༺n 3 during the restart at Suzuka.

While the seven-time world champion did not lo⭕se “a lot of lap time” as a result of the damage, the loss of front downforce hampered Hamilton in t🐬he 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 bꦕit more understeery on a stint where we were probably already a little bit on the understeery side,” Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin explained.

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

“Now at the pit s🐼top we didn’t change the wing but we can put some flap angle back♏ in it. You can put a bit more load on and that actually put the car in a much better place.

“So, as I said in terms of headl❀ine numb🍌ers, not a lot of lap time when you can balance it out but certainly 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澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:George Russell pass him.

“I got some damage I think in the first stint at the restart with Charles [Leclerc] and I had massive🧸 understeer, like huge, huge understeer,” he explained after Sunday’s race.

“So that’s why I decided to let George by, because he seemed quicker an⛦d I just couldn’t turn the carඣ.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff praised Hamilton for his “extremely fair play” in giving up pos꧂ition to Russell, who would go on to finish seventh, two places ahead of Hamilton.

“That was extremely fair play,” Wolff told Channel 4. “It wasn’꧅t like he was giving up๊ a position for a podium [but] it was really trying to understand why wasn’t he fast at that stage.”