Hamilton: Wet lap that led to crash “wasn't my call”

The Mercedes team decided to send both Hamilton and teammate Nico Rosberg out on intermediate tyres in heavy rain to gather data in case of a wet start on Sunday.

But the decision backfired when Hamilton aquaplaned into the tyrewall, destroying his front wing.

"It has still been a good day so I am pretty relaxed," said Hamilton of the shunt. "It wasn't my call to go out; not necessarily… We collectively don't think it was the best call to go out, but at the end of the day it didn't affect our running."

When asked what happened, he replied: "It was just [like] ice! It was slippy."

The team’s technical chief Paddy Lowe explained the reasoning behind the wet-weather run.

"It didn't quite end the way we wanted it to," admitted Lowe. "We went out to do practice race starts, normal part of our P2 programme.

"It was very condensed in a short window of dry weather, we chose not to do those starts during dry period and go out when it got wet – indeed, and get two or three race starts done, unfortunately conditions worsened quicker than expected and conditions caught Lewis out in an uncertain manner." 

Lowe refuted fears that the recovery of Hamilton's car had damaged it further: "I've only just come from the garage – we were worried watching that actually.

"I think there is some minor damage on the rear end that came from the crane handling, but nothing serious."

Ferrari threat anticipated

Hamilton said that he expects a stronger threat from Ferrari this weekend, after it brought an updated engine to the track, which is renowned for its strong power requirements.

"The car is feeling good out there, really good," he said of his Mercedes. "Ferrari have picked up the pace with their engine which will be interesting to see tomorrow. I think we are still in good form.

"I feel good this weekend and I feel good with the car, very much the same as the last race. And also the long runs."

Teammate Rosberg echoed his thoughts: "Ferrari seem to be very quick so let's see, they looked pretty close. I have to chat to my engineers to see what they think and look into that.

"They know much better than we do, what their real pace is compared to us, because they can see on the data and if they have turned up their engine compared to us and how much fuel they had on board.

"We can see all that and it means much more than the times, actually."