Mystery Ferrari car issue “massively hindered” Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton says the car issue that dogged his Ferrari during the F1 Spanish Grand Prix “massively hindered” his performance.

After finishing a disappointing sixth in Barcelona, seven-time world champion Hamilton described his race as being “the worst I’ve experienced” in a Ferrari, having uncharacteristically struggled for pace.

Hamilton ran as high as fourth in the early stages before his performance dropped off, resulting in him being moved aside for his faster teammate Charles Leclerc.

He was also overtaken by Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg following a late Safety Car and finished seventh on the road, before being promoted one place thanks to Max Verstappen’s penalty.

Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur revealed after the race that both Hamilton and Leclerc suffered issues on their cars, but would not disclose further details.

Hamilton was tight-lipped when he was asked about the problem ahead of this weekend’s F1 Canadian Grand Prix, but confirmed it did impact his performance.

“Massively, massively. Unfortunately the team don’t want us to talk too much about it but we both had issues that were hindering us massively from half-way through the race already,” Hamilton said.

“What I didn’t know was if I had that problem but obviously I said on the radio that it was the worst feeling car that I’d ever had and it truly was with that issue. 

"At the end of the race I was like ‘jeez, I have never experienced something this bad for such a long time in a race’.”

Hamilton admits car issue a ‘relief’

Hamilton was visibly dejected after a challenging race in Spain and apologised to Sky Sports F1’s Rachel Brookes for his downbeat interview.

The 40-year-old Briton admitted it was a “relief” for him to learn about the problem affecting his car during a team debrief after the TV interviews took place.

“It wasn’t until after the TV interviews I get back to the engineers and we find out there was an issue,” he explained. “So it was a bit of a relief to hear that because I definitely didn’t feel so terrible afterwards.”