The Emilia Romagna Grand Prix started with some fine driving. Max Verstappen went head to head with Lewis Hamilton in tricky track conditions. But after a few turns, Verstappen raised the bar by increasing the gap between him and Hamilton.
The reason for this massive gap was because of damage to Lewis’ car after a minor bump with Verstappen. This bump caused Hamilton to damage his front wing.
According to the Silver Arrows’ engineering director, Andrew Shovlin, this slight damage was responsible for Hamilton losing precious time per lap.
He said, “Well, initially it was quite large (the loss in performance). The reason for that was because the footplate of the front wing hadn’t come away completely.
“While this was flapping around, it was causing a big loss, so around six-tenths of a second. Eventually, that bit of the front wing fell off completely.
“That was actually quite good for Lewis, it halved the loss. So what we were seeing later on was two to three-tenths.”
Hamilton, trying his best to regain his spot went into another bit of trouble after beaching himself on the gravel.
However, he was absolutely lucky because at that precise moment, a red flag was announced which helped him get a replacement fin down at the pits.
With a newly fitted wing, Hamilton made an epic comeback. Even though he restarted the race from P9, he crawled his way up and came in second just behind Verstappen.
The race ended with Hamilton one point ahead of Verstappen in the drivers’ standings.
Do you think Hamilton will be able to extend his lead in Portugal? Let us know in the comments below!
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