Mercedes’ trackside engineering director, Andrew Shovlin, has explained the reasons behind Lewis Hamilton’s struggles in the ground effect era.

"If you look for a common theme, we have a car that is difficult to turn in the slower corners, and the way the drivers have to turn it is by sliding the rear on the way in and sliding the rear on the power on the way out,” he explained.

"That adds [tyre] temperature, and dealing with that problem Lewis has found quite difficult. You could argue that Lewis was head and shoulders the best in the previous set of regulations. He certainly found driving the cars second nature.

"Lewis would set up the car so that, as the [rear of the] car came up [during braking] and you gained pitch, it would help you turn the car, and he relied on those elements. And that was how you generated performance in the previous set of regulations.

"He has struggled more with the way these cars run. These cars you need to run lower, you need to run stiffer, they are banging into the ground more, you haven't got as much movement in the platform from low to high speed."