After smashing up his automotive in Saturday’s third free follow on the exit of Fagnes, Lewis Hamilton qualifying simply 0.002s behind Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc might be seen as a profitable train in harm limitation, however that is not how the seven-time System 1 world champion views it.
Leclerc and Hamilton certified fifth and sixth at Spa-Francorchamps; a logical sufficient consequence on paper for the Scuderia on the high-speed Ardennes loop the place it anticipated its energy unit deficit to Mercedes to be too massive a hurdle to beat.
However whereas Leclerc was dented by an erroneously displayed yellow flag in his bid to sneak forward of a struggling George Russell, Hamilton additionally felt there was a missed alternative to qualify increased up.
Whereas praising his Maranello group for rebuilding the automotive between FP3 and qualifying, Hamilton stated the in depth restore job left his automotive feeling out of stability on the rear finish.
The specification of Hamilton’s SF-26 did not change, however as a result of the group was underneath time stress to get his automotive out earlier than the beginning of qualifying, Hamilton seen a delicate set-up change that tilted his automotive set-up out of stability and value him one or two tenths per lap.
“I feel one thing wasn’t the identical on the rear suspension, so the stability wasn’t the identical as I had in FP3, when the automotive was feeling actually nice,” Hamilton defined.
Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
Photograph by: Marc Fleury
“The blokes did an amazing job repairing the automotive and this stuff occur, you progress on. I did one of the best I may in qualifying, I feel my laps had been fairly first rate.
“They pushed proper till the final minute to get the factor mounted, so I am simply grateful they did and I hope the automotive continues to be OK within the race.”
When requested by Autosport if the vast majority of his half-second deficit to polesitter Kimi Antonelli was all the way down to the facility unit, Hamilton replied: “I am not fairly positive, I have not seen the overlay, so I undoubtedly know in my final sector I used to be dropping some. However they have been up on deployment all weekend and we anticipated it on the monitor when you will have 50% extra straights.”
However given how “nice” Hamilton’s automotive felt this weekend, the Briton was nonetheless upbeat on his possibilities to problem for the rostrum.
“In FP3 the automotive was feeling actually good and I did a little bit of a long term and the automotive was feeling nice,” he stated. “It’s a barely completely different, subtly completely different automotive set-up clever, so I am nonetheless hoping it is good for tomorrow.”
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