Lewis Hamilton has said he thought he had incurred damage to his Mercedes Formula 1 car amid the huge understeer he experienced during the Chinese Grand Prix.
Hamilton had sustained an encouraging start to the weekend as he capitalised on favourable circumstances to race to a second-place finish in the truncated Sprint.
However, the Briton endured a tumultuous time on track in Shanghai in the subsequent sessions, recovering to ninth place from 18th having been eliminated in Q1.
The seven-time champion had opted to start on the grippiest Soft compound, but he failed to make sufficient ground and dropped a single place on the opening lap.
“Oh my god, I was the only one, I think, on the Soft and it fell apart after lap one,” Hamilton said regarding his strategic choice for the start. “It was very difficult.”
Hamilton, who lamented a lock-up into the Turn 14 hairpin in qualifying, has stated he had so much understeer on his car in the first stint that he suspected damage.
“I thought at the beginning I tapped someone because I have never had so much understeer, so I was turning in at slow speed and waiting, waiting, waiting,” he said.
“I thought I had damaged something like some of the others because there was debris going everywhere at one point but it was just the set-up that I chose.
“With better decisions on set-up, maybe we would be around where George is but we just have to keep fighting.”
Hamilton has accepted that the aggressive set-up changes he made post-Sprint provided a leading contributor to the difficulties that he encountered in the grand prix.
“Ultimately, I made a bad set-up change to the car yesterday and I paid the price for it,” he added. “I plan to make sure I don’t do that in the future.”
Mercedes Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin has conceded that the team was somewhat relieved that Hamilton was able to climb up to the points places.
“Lewis’ race wasn’t easy as he didn’t gain much off the line on the Soft tyre,” he said. “He then got stuck in a traffic jam on the inside line around Turn 2 and lost to cars on the wide line.
“We had made some changes to his car after the Sprint and clearly they weren’t didn’t improve the car.
“It made qualifying and the race difficult. He was struggling to turn the car and having to use the power to do so, which was hurting the rear tyres.
“We decided to pit him under the Virtual Safety Car to offset to other cars, but most of our competitors did the same once the Safety Car was deployed.
“We benefitted from a couple of cars dropping out ahead but, considering the early part of the race, it was a relief to get some points.”
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