Ferrari says that the impact with a groundhog that derailed Lewis Hamilton’s hopes of a podium in Formula 1’s Canadian Grand Prix cost him as much as half a second per lap.
Hamilton had looked on course to fight for a strong finish in Montreal after qualifying fifth and appearing to have the pace to push forward early on.
But it all went wrong on lap 12 on the run down to the hairpin when he struck a groundhog that was sitting in the middle of the track.
The impact, which damaged Hamilton’s floor, triggered a loss of performance that the seven-time world champion was initially unable to explain as he was not aware he had hit anything.
Reflecting afterwards, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur says that the consequences were quite extensive – with one point of downforce being worth anywhere between 0.025 and 0.01 seconds per lap depending on the individual car configuration.
“It's true that we had a small kiss with the marmot,” said Vasseur. “It was at the beginning of the first stint, and he damaged all the front part of the floor.
“It's something like 20 points [of downforce]. Hopefully, we didn't have a big change in balance, but it was a lot of performance. We will send flowers to the marmot.”
Hamilton said that his Ferrari did not feel the same after the groundhog strike, as he estimated being around half a second off.
“I was just slow,” he explained. “I was lacking a lot of performance. I think it was over half a second. So I was just going backwards.”
Without the damage, Hamilton reckons he would probably have been on pace terms with Oscar Piastri, who ended up finishing fourth after a super close fight for a podium spot.
“I was holding on up until the damage,” he said. “I was kind of holding onto Piastri. I think with the damage then I started to drop off from Piastri, and then we probably should have stopped around the same time, but we for some reason stayed out.
“Then we lost a tonne of time, came out behind a bunch of people, and I was stuck behind people, so then I just ended up in no-man's land.
“To still come away with sixth, it's a positive. I think if everything was perfect, if we had done everything right and we didn't have any problems, maybe we would have fourth.”
Hamilton ended up finishing behind team-mate Charles Leclerc, who came home fifth after being involved in some back and forth with his team about strategy choices in the race.
Leclerc reckoned that his tyres were good enough to have gunned for a one-stopper, but Ferrari overruled him and moved him on to the two stops that everyone else in the lead group did.
But while the messages pointed to a disagreement, Leclerc reckons that it ultimately changed little.
“There was obviously a bit of discussion on the radio to understand what was the right call,” he said.
“We were aligned at one point, and then the team decided to converge on the two stops, which I did not agree with at that moment.
“But eventually I think the team has more information than I do on the pitwall. We'll review it, because I was pretty sure of what I felt, what I had seen around me, that the one stop was the right call.
“But I think the poor result of today is more down to my mistake in the Q1 and the traffic yesterday [in qualifying] than anything else.”
Vasseur suggested afterwards that perhaps Ferrari should have been more willing to roll the dice with its strategy – especially knowing it was not the fastest car out there.
“They were a bit vocal, and I discussed with Charles after the race that where he's right is that we have not that much to lose when you are behind the pack,” he said.
“We can take some risks, but it was for us a bit too optimistic to do one stint of 50 laps with the hards in terms of life and performance. We were missing probably also some laps during the weekend to estimate it.”
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