Contention-based forwarding in wireless ad-hoc networks reduces transmission failure rate by selecting one receiver with good channel among multiple receivers. However, contention-based forwarding may increase transmission latency due to the collision problem caused by the simultaneous transmission among multiple receivers. In this paper, we present an analytic model that reflects the delay and collision rate of contention-based forwarding in lossy wireless links. Through the analytic model, we calculate the expected delay and progress in one-hop transmission under given wireless link model and delay model. Based on the analytic results, we observe that delay model should be adapted to wireless link model for optimal performance in contention-based forwarding.