Hamilton's car not seriously damaged despite claims

Hamilton's comments on his team radio may have led people to believe differently.

"I think my car's broken. I've lost half my floor, I'm sure," the Mercedes driver said on the team radio.

Andrew Shovlin, who is a trackside engineering director confirmed that there was "very, very minimal" damage to the car, when speaking in Mercedes' 'Pure Pitwall'.

"We didn't have much damage at all," he said.

"It was quite a big impact and we were pretty lucky to get away with it.

"The reality though was that you heard Lewis complaining about damage to his floor.

"We thought that there might have been some aerodynamic damage but that was just from running in the turbulent air of all those cars ahead when he was having to fight through.

"It was only when he got into clear air, and he could feel what the car was like and we could see his pace, that we were able to really understand that the damage was very, very minimal."

Shovlin also spoke about Mercedes' need to have better starts and perhaps if Hamilton's start was better, the Raikkonen incident wouldn't have happened.

"We are doing a lot of work here this week trying to understand that, because we know fine well that if qualify on pole we have got to get off the line as well as the Ferraris and that is what we will be trying to do in Hockenheim."