The moment 'devastated' Lewis Hamilton ran over groundhog during Canadian GP
Sir Lewis Hamilton says he is 'devastated' after learning that he ran over a groundhog during the Canadian Grand Prix on Sunday.
Amid a difficult first season at Ferrari, Hamilton looked to have good pace at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve and after qualifying fifth, a first podium finish in red was on the cards.
But after a decent start to the race, the seven-time Formula 1 champion fell off the frontrunners dramatically and was forced to settle for sixth, finishing behind teammate Charles Leclerc again.
To add insult to injury, it was former teammate George Russell who took victory while his Mercedes replacement Kimi Antonelli claimed his first career podium.
Ferrari would reveal however that Hamilton's pace was actually a result of his car picking up significant damage just 13 laps into the 70 lap race.
The cause of the damage was also confirmed to be from running over a groundhog, with the furry animals a common sight and hazard at the Montreal circuit.
'I was just slow, I was just lacking a lot of performance, so it was over half a second, so I just had to go at it,' the British driver said. 'My qualifying was better, I was holding on up until the damage, I was kind of holding on to Oscar Piastri, I think.
'I was managing the tyre as well, so I was feeling optimistic and then I didn't see it happen but obviously I heard I hit a groundhog, so that's devastating.
'I love animals so I'm so sad about it. That's horrible. It's never nice to see that – I just hope it didn't suffer.
'That's never happened to me here before. But the floor, basically the right side has a hole in it and all the veins are all gone. Then, we had a brake issue halfway through as well.
'I'm grateful that I could just finish, particularly with the brake issue I had to bag those points. But to still come away with sixth, I think if everything was perfect, if we had done everything right, if we didn't have any problems, maybe it would have been fourth.' More Trending
The result leaves Hamilton sixth in the championship, 25 points behind Leclerc after 10 races. F1 heads to Austria next, with Ferrari hoping to bring upgrades at the following grand prix at Silverstone.
Under-fire Ferrari boss, Frederic Vasseur was able to see some humour in the unfortunate incident, adding: 'First, it's true that we had a small kiss with the marmot and we 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.'
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