Lewis Hamilton collided with his Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc on the opening lap of the Chinese Grand Prix as damage threatened to ruin their race
Lewis Hamilton collided with Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc on the opening lap of the Chinese Grand Prix.
The two drivers managed to overtake Max Verstappen heading into the long right-hand opening turn. But the Ferrari team-mates tangled as the two made contact.
Hamilton’s right rear tyre made contact with Leclerc’s front wing, seeing carbon fibre fly off the Monegasque’s car.
The contact was not substantial enough to spin either car, but did deal Leclerc damage, which Verstappen swiftly reported to his team on the radio in a bid to tempt the stewards to intervene and tell Leclerc to pit for safety reasons.
However, Leclerc was able to continue despite his race engineer Bryan Bozzi telling his driver that he was losing “between 20 and 30 points” of downforce due to the damage. While Hamilton was on the team radio saying he was hit by another driver.
Despite the damage, Leclerc insisted to his team that he wanted to pursue the original strategy and not change following the contact, as he appeared to not suffer too much performance loss.
Leclerc later pitted on lap 16 of the race, but there was no front wing change. Instead, Ferrari only opted to change the tyres to a fresh set. Leclerc’s team clearly felt the minimum time of 10 seconds to replace a front wing at a pit stop would have done more damage to his race than continuing with a missing end plate.
Soon after the pit stop, Ferrari called to switch their drivers, with Hamilton giving way to Leclerc as the 27-year-old showed considerably more pace than the Brit.
More to follow…
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