Hamilton: Once I heard Ferrari evidence was Chandhok’s video I relaxed

Lewis Hamilton says his fears over his Canadian Grand Prix victory relaxed after he found out Ferrari’s new evidence was led by Karun Chandhok’s Sky Sports F1 TV analysis.

The Mercedes driver has conceded he was anxious over the FIA appeal hearing, where Ferrari was confident of supplying “overwhelming” new evidence to potentially get Sebastian Vettel’s five-second time penalty overturned, effectively handing the Canadian GP win to the German from Hamilton.

But following the hearing, the FIA threw out the appeal on the grounds of no new significant evidence after Ferrari led its appeal on Chandhok’s analysis of the incident on Sky Sports F1 – with the FIA explaining it was an independent and third party opinion which would not influence the original decision.

With Hamilton duly retaining his victory from Montreal, he keeps his 29-point lead in the F1 drivers’ standings and is in prime position to extend his advantage after securing pole for this weekend’s French Grand Prix.

Reflecting on his unusual French GP build-up, where he also skipped his media commitments on Thursday to attend a memorial for Karl Lagerfeld in Paris, Hamilton admits he had mixed emotions before this race due to the off-track distractions.

“It was definitely odd coming here when I heard Ferrari were spending time focusing on something else,” Hamilton said. “Naturally for my team I would have them focus on trying to improve the car. But then we came here, when I arrived, I heard it was Karun Chandhok’s video that was the new evidence so I was pretty relaxed after that. I put it behind me.

“In the last race it is not always easy, like when you hear boos for example [Hamilton was booed on the Canadian GP podium following Vettel’s penalty], but that is part of the game and if anything it spurs me on. I had a great race I thought at the circuit and had a lot of great people following me there. So even if you feel crap it is not a bad time to say something motivational.

“The weekend started off a little different, we arrive usually on Thursday morning or Wednesday night and I got here on Thursday evening and we got through our programme no problem but if you are used to a usual four-day programme and you change it, it is not always the easiest.”