Why did Hamilton lose his perfect car balance from Silverstone Sprint in the main race?

Lewis Hamilton has explained why Ferrari's pace faded for him after a promising start to the British Grand Prix weekend, revealing that setup changes made ahead of Sunday's race left his SF-26 struggling with balance and ultimately compromised his challenge for victory.

The seven-time world champion looked like a genuine contender at Silverstone after taking a surprise pole position for the Sprint and running strongly throughout Saturday.

However, despite starting on the front row for the Grand Prix, Hamilton was unable to match teammate Charles Leclerc's pace as the Monegasque went on to claim his maiden British Grand Prix victory and the ninth win of his Formula 1 career.

Hamilton eventually finished third after serving a five-second penalty for moving before the start and losing further track position during a late Safety Car pit stop.

Reflecting on his afternoon, Hamilton admitted it had been a frustrating race despite securing another Silverstone podium: "Yeah, not that great. Charles did a mega job today, fully deserves the win."

Hamilton acknowledged that his problems began almost immediately after the lights went out: "From my side, pretty bad from the get-go. I jumped the start, which I have done very few times in the 380-odd races that I've done."

Beyond the false start, Hamilton believes changes to the car's setup left him with an unbalanced Ferrari that became increasingly difficult to drive during the opening stint.

He explained that Leclerc had opted to increase rear wing compared with qualifying, while he went in the opposite direction after feeling the car was suffering from excessive oversteer because of the differential settings.

"And then just balance-wise, I noticed Charles went up on his balance, I think compared to qualifying, added more wing, and I felt the car was really oversteer with the diff settings that we had had."

Expecting to cure the oversteer, Hamilton reduced rear wing, but the adjustment produced the opposite effect once the race got underway: "And so, I took out wing and then I had the biggest understeer at the beginning of the race."

The balance issues left him unable to attack the corners, allowing Leclerc to build an early advantage: "So, he just pulled away from me. I just couldn't even turn the car until halfway kind of through that first stint."

Hamilton eventually managed to improve the handling by adjusting the differential settings from inside the cockpit, but by then the race had already slipped away.

"I managed to start turning the car a little bit better with some diff changes, but by then the gap was already huge."

His recovery was then made even more difficult by the five-second penalty for a false start: "And then the five-second at the stop, and then there's just one thing after the other."