Mercedes director shares how front wing damage hampered Lewis Hamilton's race in Japan

Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin has said that the front wing damage on Lewis Hamilton's W15 hampered his performance at the Japanese GP.

The seven-time world champion had another disappointing race in Suzuka as he finished P9 after starting from P7. After taking a gamble on strategy by opting for the hard tires on the restart, the Mercedes driver was unable to make progress, having sustained damage to his front wing after contact with Charles Leclerc.

As per PlanetF1, Shovlin said that it was difficult to pinpoint the loss of points in downforce due to the damage. He explained:

“It did lose a bit and more than the absolute amount of downforce you lost, it just made the car a bit more understeery on a stint where we were probably already a little bit on the understeery side. But that additional loss then caused him problems and he was actually quite front-limited throughout that first stint.

"You can put a bit more load on and that actually puts the car in a much better place. So, as I said in terms of headline numbers, not a lot of lap time when you can balance it out but certainly adding to the problems that we had during stint one.”

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Lewis Hamilton analyzes his P9 finish at the Japanese GP

Lewis Hamilton has said that he couldn't "turn the car" properly due to the damage from his contact with Charles Leclerc as the W15 was unpredictable.

As per F1.com, the Mercedes driver said:

“The car is never what I hoped it would be. It’s never what we hoped it would be. I got some damage I think in the first stint at the restart with Charles [Leclerc] and I had massive understeer, like huge, huge understeer.

"So that’s why I decided to let George by because he seemed quicker and I just couldn’t turn the car. It took us two stints to finally dial more and more wing in to make up for that loss."

It has been a dismal start to Lewis Hamilton's final season with Mercedes as he sits in P9 in the Driver's Championship with just 10 points from the first four races. He is 14 points behind George Russell, who is three places ahead of him.

Heading into the Chinese GP next weekend, Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes would be eyeing a strong result as the track characteristics might suit their package.