This is how much Hamilton lost per lap to damage to his car

Lewis Hamilton looked to be heading for a second place finish at the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday, but damage to his car threw him back to fourth. Andrew Shovlin explained in the Debrief from Mercedes explains how much time Hamilton lost.

Damage in Austria

It was around the pitstops where things went wrong for Hamilton. Up until his pitstop he had been faster than Valtteri Bottas, but after his pitstop he lost time every lap. Something had gone wrong. The Briton had sustained damage, at turn ten, and lost a huge amount of time. He went on to lose his second place to his teammate, and also P3 to Lando Norris.

When asked how much Hamilton suffered from this damage, Shovlin said: "The answer is a lot. The bit that got damaged is some of the winglets which sit on the rear upright, under the rear wing. This is an intricate aerodynamic part that generate an awful lot of performance actually. It is a very sensitive area, and we are measuring the pressures in those areas and from that we can calculate the performance," said the Mercedes engineer.

Hamilton's loss

"The estimates that were coming in were about 30 to 40 points of downforce, and that translates to around six or seven-tenths loss per lap. That's quite a substantial amount. Even worse here, it all came off the rear axel, so Lewis had a lot of oversteer, a sliding car and overheated tyres.''

According to the engineer, the team, therefore, had to take the safe bet with the extra pit stop. ''Those factors caused a lot of wear and tear, and that cost Lewis his P2. We also decided to bring him in for another set of tyres just to make sure he'd get to the end," Shovlin concluded.