Hamilton losses from Verstappen clash revealed

Mercedes has revealed the damage sustained to Lewis Hamilton's W12 after his contact with title rival Max Verstappen in the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.

Hamilton and Verstappen clashed on a number of occasions during the inaugural race at the high-speed Jeddah Corniche Circuit.

The main flashpoint arrived on lap 38 when, after retaining the lead over Hamilton via running off the track a lap earlier, Verstappen followed an instruction to allow through the Mercedes driver.

Explaining that Mercedes team manager Ron Meadows was only informed of the situation as Verstappen hit the brake pedal, trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin revealed the extent of the damage to Hamilton's car.

“Well, the total loss of downforce was around a quarter of a second but in addition, because you’ve lost it from the front axle, the car is understeering," said Shovlin.

"So, estimates are that it is around 0.35 of a second total. Now, he was still able to get the fastest lap but there are a few things that worked in his favour.

"The medium [tyre] runners had dropped off, the hard runners were by and large slower cars, Max didn’t decide to take a new tyre and go for fastest lap himself and ultimately Lewis was quick and the car was fast anyway.

"It was a very good effort to get that and a vital point that we can carry into this weekend in Abu Dhabi.”

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