Lewis Hamilton was happy with his comeback in F1 Belgian GP after starting from the pitlane, as he reveals addition of new figure in his team which made it tricky.
It was not the start that Ferrari’s Hamilton wanted to F1 Belgian GP at Spa-Francorchamps after he spun to be knocked out in SQ1 on Friday. He revealed that they added a part to the rear wing – which Charles Leclerc tested in Canada. His first push lap on it caught him out, but it was fine later on.
The sprint race was nothing but his misery didn’t end. He was knocked out in Q1 on Saturday due to track limits. The team decided to put a new set of power unit elements and change a bit on the car to start from the pitlane on Sunday, which worked wonders for the Brit.
He was aggressive at the start and went for an aggressive early stop which put him in seventh. He couldn’t progress further since the downforce level wasn’t as good to be quicker in dry conditions. It was a compromise, which Hamilton and Frederic Vasseur felt was the right call in the end.
There was a chance to be in the Top 5, but Hamilton was anyhow pleased to be seventh from pitlane. He had additional learning after Ferrari shuffled his engineering team and added another person on his (and Riccardo Adami’s) side, who had come from Mercedes, but worked in different position.
Race, new part –
Hamilton: “Yeah, obviously, massively challenging being all the way back there, but I made some changes overnight. So much in the build-up to this week, obviously with the upgrade that we have — there’s basically two elements to it, and one of those elements we had to test back in Montreal, but I didn’t end up testing it. Charles ended up testing it and ended up using it for part of it for a couple of races, so he’s definitely — he did a great job today and he’s feeling more acclimatised. For me, it was the first time using it, and that spin that we had caught me out [in sprint qualifying] because we also had a change of engineer, so we were both in the deep end basically, and I think we did a really good job overnight to rectify some of those, tweak it, fine-tune it, and the car was so much better today to drive. So I had a lot of fun trying to make my way through.
“Everyone in the team worked so hard. Everyone back in the factory worked so hard. We obviously had these upgrades. And then when you come and put a performance like I had in the past two days, it’s tough. That’s not what the team deserves. As I said, it wasn’t a case of necessarily coming in and not being in the right mind through the weekend. There were a few factors that did affect, particularly on Friday. Saturday was fine. But I recovered today. We got some points. We outscored Mercedes in points. It was very good. Charles did a great job. Clearly the car is improving, because Charles was able to hold on to the podium. We’re going to work hard next week to try and win the first one.”
Vasseur: “You are clever enough to see when we did the lift and coast and to understand the reason. The mood is good. For sure, we didn’t expect a result with Lewis like quali but it is part of the life of a racing team that…we reacted collectively well in the race. Lewis did a great job, he was quite aggressive at the beginning in the extreme conditions. He was able to fight with Albon until the end with the downforce of Budapest and I think it was a good recovery for him, also to be efficient like this. For sure that we have to do a better job from the beginning if you want to score podium and wins, you can’t let one session away. We will have to do a step next week but we are all pushing in the same direction.”
Strategy call –
Hamilton: “I am really trying to finesse that, get it right each time. I think that’s the area for me that’s not been strong. The last race I thought it was maybe one lap too early and today was like spot on, so I could have probably just done it one lap earlier but it was like okay.”
Vasseur: “He’s engineering the car (laughs). I don’t think so [we should relax the parc ferme after qualifying]. We did it because it was kind of circumstances because first you can usually overtake in Spa, second we had old story with the level of downforce, the choice between yesterday and today, it was kind of gamble to choose the level of rear wing. I think it is more circumstances but it is one or two times a year. It is not a drama. At the end, everybody started behind the safety car. For sure the strategy, when you are in this situation, you have to gamble little bit. The situation is that we are degrading a lot the inter and we were far away of the crossover, just because the inter was disaster, they were completely gone, you put a new set of inter, you are also six seconds faster.
“But I think it was the right call at the right moment, a bit aggressive. We were quite close to do it with Charles, but Charles would have been in traffic, and it mean that we did it with Lewis and I think it was the right call at the right lap. Don’t try to speak it was team or the driver, it is always the collective decision. I think with Lewis it is the right call, because in the first couple of laps you can overtake and the downforce helped him to comeback. Then we had the general pace to overtake Russell or Albon and we were stuck behind them with the wing but at least we came back P7.”
Engineer addition –
Hamilton: “It’s not easy to switch engineers within the middle of a season. But it’s someone that I’ve known for years as actually on my team, my previous team with me, but not in that position. We’re getting used to each other and learning, having to learn like super, super quick. I think the changes that we had really caught both of us out. But I think we did a great job overnight. We’ll just get stronger and stronger together.”
Weekend –
Hamilton: “I think this one is definitely one to put behind me. I definitely feel confident going forward here. As I said, having learned more about the car today, fine-tuned it, I’ll set that up better for next week. We’ll be at the factory on Wednesday. I don’t see why we wouldn’t have better results than before.”
Here’s charge from Lewis Hamilton: https://www.formula1.com/en/video/2025-belgian-grand-prix-hamilton-on-a-charge-as-he-overtakes-lawson-into-p7.1838813864184890759
Here’s how F1 Belgian GP panned out
