Set-up changes after sprint race win made car feel "terrible"

Lewis Hamilton said the changes he made to his car after winning the sprint race ruined its balance.

Following his comfortable win from pole position on Saturday, Hamilton could only manage fifth on the grid for the grand prix and slipped to sixth place behind team mate Charles Leclerc in the race. Compounding a disappointing turnaround for Ferrari, both drivers were disqualified after their cars failed technical checks.

Immediately after the race Hamilton’s chief concern was the deterioration in his car’s performance compared to the previous day.

“I wasn’t able to get the result that I was hoping for today,” he told the official F1 channel. “I needed a good start which I got and then I was trying to see if I could pounce forwards but I just didn’t have the pace of the cars up ahead.

“Balance-wise, from the sprint race we made these changes and the car was terrible after that so I really struggled with the car from then on.”

Speaking before his disqualification was announced Hamilton said he was concerned Ferrari “were losing ground to McLarens, points-wise, and Mercedes and Verstappen. We’ve just got to keep pushing.”

However his team mate Charles Leclerc was encouraged by his car’s pace, despite picking up front wing damage on the opening lap which he carried to the finish.

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“I’m disappointed because I feel like the potential today was here to maybe fight for the win, actually,” he said. “I really feel like we had a lot of performance in the car.

“Yesterday in the sprint race I felt that way as well, especially towards the end of the sprint race. When I started pushing, I started to gain a lot.”

Leclerc also worked on his set-up between the sprint race and qualifying and said he was “quite optimistic for today.” However he broke his left-hand front wing endplate when he clipped Hamilton at the start.

“We lost 30 points of downforce so that was a big chunk of performance,” he said. “But we did a really good job considering that.

“It’s just a shame about turn one. Lewis couldn’t have done anything better, I don’t know what I could have done better. He was on the outside, I thought he was defending from a car on the outside and then he came back towards the inside. I did not expect that, but he had all the right to do so.

“So we touched. Luckily for us, we both finished the race. But it wasn’t ideal, with the damage, later on.”

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