JUST NOW: It felt entirely different. Hamilton laments Mercedes’s performance shift following a………
After the first practice day of the Belgian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton was not in a good mood. The Mercedes driver admitted that it was “not great” to be 1.2 seconds behind Lando Norris’s fastest performance in FP2.
The Silver Arrows had been on a strong roll going into the weekend, having won consecutive races in Austria and Great Britain before Hamilton finished third in Hungary.
FP2: In Belgium, Norris leads Piastri and Verstappen in the second practice time.
Though the seven-time world champion finished fifth in the first practice, the team did not appear to be moving at nearly the same pace when they took to the track at Spa-Francorchamps on Friday. Hamilton finished second practice in 10th place on the timesheets.
When asked about his thoughts on the day following his automobile leap, Hamilton replied, “It was a pretty bad day.” I am at a loss for words! Though it felt very different today, it has obviously felt fantastic in the last few races.
“We worked on it; the first session wasn’t very good, but we fixed certain things in the second one. It went really well at first, but as soon as I hit the soft tyre, I was unable to get much better.
Watch as Norris records the quickest lap in Belgium on Friday.
When asked how he felt about the rest of the weekend in light of the possibility of bad weather, Hamilton responded with a laugh, saying, “Excellent! Since we won’t be in the best of situations right now if it’s dry, but we can definitely make some modifications over night.
“I believe that rain opens everything up a little bit, so perhaps we can do
George Russell finished fourth in Formula One and then scored the sixth fastest time in Formula Two on the opposite side of the Mercedes garage. Similar to Hamilton, the British player believed that the team might still do better.
Russell remarked after the race, “It’s always nice to be here in Spa, it’s a super cool track – it’s very fast this year with a bit resurfaced.” “We have some work ahead of us tonight. Red Bull and McLaren are currently undoubtedly a step ahead of us, so [we] just need to keep assessing and go from there.”
Highlights: Watch the action as Ocon concludes the session early and Verstappen achieves the fastest time in Formula One at Spa.
When asked if he had anticipated the team to be in this situation before the weekend or if it had come as more of a surprise, Russell said, “I need to take a look as it’s only been ten minutes since I jumped out of the car.”
“Tomorrow is going to be a different day, and I’m sure we can find a little bit more tonight. [I need to] look at the long run pace at high fuel, and then I think the McLarens were at max power which gives you a couple of tenths around this track.” However, we frequently have excellent Fridays and the
