Ferrari engineers think Lewis Hamilton was exaggerating damage from George Russell crash at Spa

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Lewis Hamilton claimed he was missing ’50 points’ of downforce after colliding with George Russell at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix.

Hamilton slid into the side of Russell’s Mercedes at the Les Combes chicane on the opening lap. While he was able to continue, his former teammate spun off into the gravel and became beached.

In addition to a five-second penalty, Hamilton sustained damage to his right bargeboard, hampering him for the remaining 43 laps of the race.

Lewis Hamilton was only losing a tenth and a half from Spa damage

In light of those obstacles, P4 represented a solid result for Hamilton. He dropped behind Oscar Piastri due to his penalty but caught and passed the McLaren in the closing stages.

“I still had great pace, but I was losing like 50 points or something,” Hamilton told Dutch broadcaster Viaplay. “So given that, I’ll take it.”

According to the Italian edition of Motorsport.com, though, Hamilton’s assessment was ‘overly pessimistic’. Ferrari’s engineers have studied the data and found that he only lost 10 points of downforce.

That was still costing him 0.15 seconds per lap, which makes his performance look more impressive.

Hamilton finished 5.7 seconds behind third-place man Max Verstappen, having lost around six and a half seconds due to damage, as per Ferrari’s calculations.

He also lost time when making his pit stop, even after serving the penalty. Hamilton was in the pit lane nine seconds longer than teammate Charles Leclerc, who came in immediately before.

Post-penalty tyre changes always tend to be slower, but there was also confusion in the Ferrari box as a mechanic tried to adjust his front wing after the green light signal had been given. The mechanic was knocked over as Hamilton pulled away, but sustained no major injuries.

Hamilton had reported understeer in his opening stint – it’s unclear if this was a setup or damage-related – but Ferrari weren’t able to rebalance the car as requested.

With his P4 finish, the seven-time world champion regained second place in the championship from Russell, but he’s now 45 points behind Kimi Antonelli, who won the race. He also lost ground to Leclerc (P2).