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Lewis Hamilton has once again pointed to the 'new brakes' on his car as something that played a role in the underwhelming F1 Belgian GP. The race weekend was not the best one for the British driver, as he had two poor qualifying sessions.
In the sprint shootout, he made an error in SQ1 that cost him a spot for SQ2. In the qualifying session for the race on Sunday, the driver lost his fastest lap in Q1 because of a track limits infringement. As a result, for both races, Lewis Hamilton's starting position was right at the back of the grid.
Compared to where Charles Leclerc was in both races, this was not a good look, and at one point, the driver revealed that a new component on his car was maybe the reason behind it. The driver claimed that a new component added to Leclerc's car in Canada caused him to have a few issues then, and it was the same thing that impacted him now.
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The race was much better for Lewis Hamilton as he made his way through the field to finish P7. Talking to F1TV afterwards, the driver once again emphasized the impact of the brakes. He said,
“I definitely did [have fun]. I always enjoy those sort of conditions. It was massively tricky being that far back. I’m happy to have come from all the way back there, recovered and got into the points. Not the result I want this weekend, definitely a weekend to forget.”
He added,
“The team did a great job. They did a great job with strategy today. I’ll try and do a better job for them next week. We got the settings better, and as you could see I was catching. I was feeling more confident bit by bit. These new brakes definitely caught me out and we’ll learn from that.”
Lewis Hamilton feels being underfueled prevented him from making further progress
When questioned if he could have made more progress in the race, the driver felt that Alex Albon was maybe someone he could have targeted. For a while, the driver was challenging him early in the stint, but after a while, he fell back and was just managing things.
As it turned out, Ferrari had underfueled the car for the kind of wing it was using (a higher downforce setup), because of which he could really challenge Alex Albon. He said,
“I think maybe right at the end I would’ve been able to attack him, but we underfueled. Basically we underfueled for the wing we had.”
As the race weekend comes to an end, Lewis Hamilton sees himself falling 30 points adrift of Charles Leclerc in the points. The driver would be hoping for a better run at Hungary, a track where he has a stunning record.
