Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton believes that his Belgian Grand Prix was “definitely a weekend to forget” despite making up 11 places and finishing in the points during Sunday’s race.
The seven-time World Champion endured a tough weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, as he failed to make it beyond the first phase in Qualifying for both the Sprint and the Grand Prix after a spin and losing a lap time to track limits in each respective session.
Having started from the pit lane after power unit and set-up changes, Hamilton made steady progress with several passes at the final chicane and into Les Combes moved him up to P13.
With conditions rapidly improving after a delayed start due to heavy rain, Hamilton became the first driver to switch from his used intermediate tyres to Pirelli’s medium rubber, which proved inspired as he eventually moved up to seventh after the pit stop sequence.
While he was unable to find a way ahead of Alex Albon’s Williams, Hamilton claimed seventh at the chequered flag and was voted Driver of the Day for his performance at a circuit where he has won five times before.
“I always enjoy those sort of conditions,” said Hamilton. “It was massively tricky being that far back in conditions where at the beginning it was really not that easy to see.
“Then we had the rolling start which, I don’t think they needed to do a rolling start, I don’t really now why they did that one because it had dried up quite a lot and the spray wasn’t that bad. But anyways, I’m happy to have come from all the way back there, recovered and got into the points.
“Not the result that I want this weekend, and definitely a weekend to forget, but positives to take from the car today. Team did a great job as they always do throughout the weekend and they did a great job with the strategy, so big thanks to them and I’ll try and do a better job for them next weekend.”
Hamilton has generally struggled to match the performance of team mate Charles Leclerc this season, the Monegasque driver finishing third at Spa, with braking being a particular issue.
Hamilton was happy that the team made a positive step in the right direction on that front during the race, but admitted that it had initially caused struggles earlier in his weekend.
“We got the settings better and definitely as you could see I was catching up, I was feeling more and more confident bit by bit,” said Hamilton. “FP1 and straight into [Sprint] Qualifying with these new brakes definitely caught me out and definitely we’ll learn from that.”