Anthony Davidson spots ‘complication’ on Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari steering wheel at Austrian GP

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Lewis Hamilton very nearly lost control of his Ferrari as he hunted down Oscar Piastri at the Austrian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Hamilton, who opted for three stops compared to McLaren’s two, was chasing Piastri for fourth when he suffered a violent snap of oversteer at the penultimate corner.

The 41-year-old lost time but crucially kept his car out of the barriers at the very same spot where Max Verstappen’s qualifying session came to an end 24 hours earlier.

What went wrong for Ferrari at the Austrian Grand Prix?

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Anthony Davidson spots the problem caused by Ferrari’s Macarena wing

Reviewing the incident for Sky Sports F1, Anthony Davidson suggested that it was connected to Ferrari’s famous ‘Macarena’ wing.

He saw Hamilton repeatedly pressing one pink button on his steering wheel during the race to open/close his active aero.

He suspects the drivers are having to do this manually because the rotating wing takes slightly longer to close back up. One slight lapse of concentration, and they could end up in the wall given the resulting loss of downforce.

Davidson said: “This pink button – I’ve seen him using this the whole way through the race – they’re manually opening and closing the slot gap of the wing under straight-line mode every single time.

George Russell wins the Austrian Grand Prix! What was your main takeaway from the race?

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“I think they’re having to do so because of the Macarena. They’re having to manually close it before they press the brake pedal or lift off.

“He goes to it, thinks he’s pressed it, turns in, realises, ‘Oh no, I haven’t,’ then actually presses it on the way into the corner.

“What a save it was for Lewis, but I think it was because of this complication of this flipping wing that they have going on that reacts slower than the front wing.”

• READ MORE: Toto Wolff reacts to Mercedes beating Lewis Hamilton by 25 seconds at Austrian Grand Prix

Ferrari’s wing, which has also been adopted by Red Bull, is designed to shed drag, though the team still have a clear power-related straight-line deficit.

McLaren will debut their own Macarena wing with an upcoming upgrade package. Piastri eventually beat Hamilton to fourth by just under five seconds, while Lando Norris passed Charles Leclerc for seventh.