Ferrari confirmed the damage Lewis Hamilton suffered during the Canadian Grand Prix was caused when he hit an animal.
Hamilton’s race engineer Ricardo Adami referred to the damage on his car during the race. When Hamilton told him “I’m nowhere in this race, mate, I don’t know what’s happened,” Adami replied: “Pace is good, considering the damage.”
Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur confirmed Hamilton’s car was damaged after he hit an animal early in the race.
“We had a big kiss with a marmot on lap eight or lap nine,” he told the official F1 channel. “This damaged all the front part of the floor.”
Several drivers have collided with animals – usually groundhogs or marmots – during races at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, which takes place on a parkland track which is used for little racing outside of the F1 event.
Hamilton, who has been vegan since 2017, said he was upset to have run over an animal during the race.
“It was feeling pretty decent up until then,” he told Sky. “I got a good start, held position, I was holding on to the group, I was managing the tyres well, so I was feeling optimistic.
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“And then, I didn’t see it happen, but obviously I heard I hit a groundhog. So that’s devastating. I love animals and I’m so sad about it, that’s horrible. That’s never happened to me here before.”
He said he was pleased to score points despite the combination of damage from the collision and other setbacks during the race.
“The floor, basically, the right side has a hole in it and all the vanes are gone. So given that, then we had a brake issue halfway through as well, and then we stayed out probably too long in the first [pit] stop and came out behind traffic and just went from one thing to another.
“So I’m grateful that I could just finish, particularly with the brake issue I had, and bag those points.”
This article will be updated
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