Hamilton Suggests He Might Have 'Picked Up Bit Of Damage' From Leclerc

Sunday, 07 April 2024 at 11:00

Lewis Hamilton shared his thoughts after yet another underwhelming result during the 2024 Japanese Grand Prix, suggesting he might have picked up some damage.

The seven-time World Champion was happy with his car from the beginning of the first practice session ahead of the weekend, and so he opted not to change too many things.

He qualified only in P7 but outperformed his teammate and said he still felt pretty good about the setup. However, that disappeared for the 39-year-old throughout the race.

Hamilton suggested he might even have picked some damage on opening laps as he lost a lot of speed by understeering in corners.

Mercedes also didn't opt for the best strategy by having to go through two sets of hard compound tires, which turned out to be a worse choice in the end. The Briton told the media at Suzuka Circuit:

"I don't know what the different strategy would have been. We still had two really terrible hard tires to run through, so a real challenge today."

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"I think I picked up a bit of damage in the beginning with Charles. He came around the outside, and I had a huge understeer for the first stint. I couldn't turn the car through the first corners. That's why I let George through."

Russell, who started two positions behind Hamilton, caught up with his teammate after a few laps. When the 39-year-old driver saw that he was holding up his teammate, he himself suggested he would let him through.

All of Mercedes's rivals had multiple sets of medium tires available. Asked whether running on the medium compound would have been a better option, the seven-time World Champion responded:

"The hard tire was really bad as I said. The medium tire was much better, so yeah, sure. In hindsight, it looks like we should have had two medium tires, but in general the car, it was pretty bad."