Lewis Hamilton’s Saturday Spa day was the opposite of restful and relaxing after a hefty crash put his qualifying chances in doubt. He smashed up the rear of his Ferrari at the very end of final practice, leaving his mechanics with an enormous repair job and only two hours to complete it.
They worked rapidly to get Hamilton back out on track for Belgian Grand Prix qualifying, but in a car which no longer felt as good. “The boys did a mega job to fix my damage after FP3,” the seven-time world champion said. “The car felt amazing in FP3 and I really felt confident.
“We wouldn’t have been fighting for pole, because the Mercedes are just too fast, but we definitely could have been, with the car we had in FP3, we could probably have been third. I was missing a couple of tenths once I got to qualifying. The car wasn’t identical to what we ended up having for qualifying, but I did the best I could with what I had.”
His best was sixth on the timesheet, rising to fifth on Sunday’s grid because of Lando Norris’ penalty. Hamilton is confident he can make progress but wasn’t confident about getting past the two Mercedes cars ahead. He said: “The last sector is where we seem to lose the most, and that is pure grunt. And a little bit in sector one, but they’re just really fast. It’s to be expected at this track.
“We expected them to be really, really fast and they are everywhere. In qualifying they just have that bit extra than everyone else. Definitely, I think we can go forward tomorrow, so I’ll be giving it absolutely everything to try to catch them up.”
Charles Leclerc was one place higher having slowed for yellow flags and he too felt better was possible. He said: “It’s a bit of a shame. That last lap was a tiny bit better, but then there was a yellow flag in the last two corners.
“I knew there was a yellow flag around that zone for the pit lane entry, but to me, the stewards were very visible, a bit too visible on track for it to be a yellow flag for the pit entry. But it’s the way it is. I lifted off and I probably lost a bit of lap time there. I wouldn’t have done a crazy-better lap time, and half a second was still there, but one position would have been possible.”
Like Hamilton, Leclerc believes Mercedes have too much power along the long Spa-Francorchamps straights for Ferrari to have much of a chance of hunting them down on Sunday. He added: “It’s just raw power, I think.
“Raw power – they are just on the better side of things, and we are pretty strong in the grip-limited [sections], but struggling in the power-limited. However, today it’s true that they were very strong in the corners as well. They just have a very strong package at the moment, and for us, we just have to focus on those tracks to maximise what we have.”