Mercedes believes the damage sustained to Lewis Hamilton’s car following his clash with Max Verstappen cost him up to four-tenths per lap.
Hamilton struck the rear of Verstappen’s car when the Red Bull driver braked along the back straight in a misjudged attempt to hand Hamilton the lead in Saudi Arabia.
Hamilton’s Mercedes, which had already taken minor damage when he brushed Esteban Ocon at the third standing start, shed further minor parts of the front wing endplate.
“[The time loss] was going up and up, so we started off with probably only about a tenth or two after he got sandwiched with Esteban and Esteban ran over it,” said Mercedes’ trackside engineering chief Andrew Shovlin.
![Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri [McLaren] celebrate their 1-2 finish at the 2025 F1 Austrian GP](https://www.motorsportweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Lando-Norris-Oscar-Piastri-McLaren-F1-2025-1-120x86.webp)
“After Max we lost the whole side of it so we’re [losing] up to nearly four-tenths of performance.”
Hamilton went on to set the fastest lap of the race, in order to gain the bonus point for fastest lap, a decision Shovlin said was entirely down to the driver.
“He’s very determined, we were in two minds, we were seeing others struggling with tyres, we could see the wing was most definitely not guaranteed to stay on the car after the evening it had,” he said.
“It’s a difficult decision between going for the point or do you play it safe.
“Ultimately Lewis was the one who took the decision and he was probably aided by the fact he can’t actually see the front wing as if he was watching the TV like we were he may have thought better of it.”
![Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri [McLaren] celebrate their 1-2 finish at the 2025 F1 Austrian GP](https://www.motorsportweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Lando-Norris-Oscar-Piastri-McLaren-F1-2025-1-350x250.webp)
![Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri [McLaren] celebrate their 1-2 finish at the 2025 F1 Austrian GP](https://www.motorsportweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Lando-Norris-Oscar-Piastri-McLaren-F1-2025-1-360x180.webp)
Max is a cheater — he will violate every rule, every moral standard to win. His tactic at the moment is to serve notice to Lewis that if he tries to pass him, Max will drive him into the barriers. If he is asked to give back a position, he will lock up his brakes in anger and force a collision.
He seems a talented driver that does not need that sleaze, but it appears he does not believe in his own abilities.
Yeah, like the time he sent Hamilton crashing into the Silverstone walls at 51G, by tapping his rear wheel for the second time in half a lap, just as he had done on the first lap at Monza in 2018, when he spun Vettel out at the second chicane, having had a failed attempt to do so at the first chicane.
There’s only one cheating, dangerous driver in this title battle, and it isn’t Max Verstappen.