(Motorsport-Total.com) – Lewis Hamilton takes full responsibility for his performance at the Belgian Grand Prix. The seven-time world champion only finished fourth, while teammate Charles Leclerc celebrated a second place. Hamilton sees the origin of his result on Saturday morning.
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“I’m thinking about my mistake from yesterday,” said the Ferrari driver after the race on Sky Sports F1. “So I take full responsibility for my fourth place, because I ultimately damaged the car.”
Shortly before the end of FT3, Hamilton had gone off at the exact spot where Pierre Gasly in the Alpine had already come to grief the day before. Consequently, after his departure at the exit of Turn 13, the Scuderia had to repair the 41-year-old’s SF-26 for qualifying. “[The team] overlooked something on the suspension,” explains Hamilton. “The balance felt completely different.”
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Hamilton also emphasizes that his car had felt “great” before the accident in FT3. According to team boss Frederic Vasseur, there was no more time for a complete set-up until qualifying. In the end, Hamilton was P6, two thousandths of a second behind his teammate.
“I was probably three tenths of a second slower in qualifying than I should have been,” Hamilton explained on Sunday. But the race on the Ardennes rollercoaster was similarly disappointing for the most successful Formula 1 driver of all time.
After the start, Hamilton collided with his former teammate George Russell at Les Combes. As a result, the Ferrari driver incurred a five-second time penalty and fell further back into the midfield.
“That was like a domino effect that I caused myself,” he said. “But the team did an outstanding job with the strategy and the pit stops.”
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Nevertheless, the pit stop also presented another hurdle for Hamilton on race Sunday. The Ferrari driver had previously requested over the radio to adjust his front wing setting.
Just as a mechanic from the Ferrari crew was about to attend to it, Hamilton received the green light and drove out of the pit. In doing so, he hit the responsible mechanic, who, however, escaped without injury.
Hamilton also struggled with the balance of his SF-26 in the second stint. And yet, the 106-time Grand Prix winner is extremely confident after the race and emphasizes: “I believe that without the damage, we would have had the pace to fight for the win today.”
Furthermore, Hamilton explains on Sky Sports F1: “We gave everything to take points. In the end, it’s about the car moving in the right direction. It’s about the team bringing the improvements to the start.”
Regarding his performance, the Ferrari driver explains: “I need to correct that next week and make sure,” says Hamilton, “that I deliver exactly as I know I can.”
In the Drivers’ World Championship, Hamilton is in second position after the race in Spa-Francorchamps. There are 45 points between him and championship leader Kimi Antonelli.