Lewis Hamilton to race for the podium on Sunday in the Belgian GP
Hamilton finished nine tenths behind Verstappen in qualifying
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Lewis Hamilton (Credits: PlanetF1)
Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton had a frustrating race weekend in Hungary. He started at the pole but lost that position as soon as Turn one. The Mercedes driver ended up finishing P4 behind Sergio Perez. Hamilton now starts at P3 in Belgium, looking to get the podium he missed out on in Hungary.
When asked what he thinks about getting the podium, Hamilton mentioned Max Verstappen, who starts at P6, will be a point of concern behind him. But he aims to look forward and chase Perez and Charles Leclerc starting ahead of him.
“I have Max behind but that will be the goal – to chase those guys down. FP1, no one got any running… so I am hoping the car is decent in the long runs. But so far, a good start,” said Hamilton.
Hamilton has expressed that he is satisfied with the qualifying results. He starts five places ahead of his teammate George Russell, and with two Red Bulls in front and behind him, along with the two McLarens at P5 and P7, he has his work cut out for him.
In case you missed it: Pole sitter Charles Leclerc plans to be an opportunist on Sunday at Spa-Francorchamps with two Red Bull rocketships behind him
Toto Wolff explains why George Russell fell behind Lewis Hamilton in qualifying
With a sprint session in Belgium, FP1 was the only opportunity for teams to test their cars and decide on their strategy. But due to that being affected by rains, the teams didn’t have much data to go with into the qualifying.
Mercedes ended up going with a lower and higher downforce configuration across their cars, with Russell being on the higher downforce choice. Mercedes boss Toto Wolff explained that they had a split decision to make, and while Hamilton could extract the best from it, Russell could not.
“We have run two very different rear wings and configurations. And you can see that Lewis is just able to extract more performance from that. He [Russell] has a bit of a barn door on the back. But that can be advantageous for tyre performance on Sunday. It didn’t help today so we need to assess why it didn’t,” Wolff told Sky Sports F1
Russell also expressed his surprise at the lack of pace he saw today. He said that they would try and understand the cause of the problem. Russell also tried to be optimistic as he said that while qualifying is not everything, he would have preferred a better place on the grid.
Keep reading:
- Charles Leclerc admits Max Verstappen and Red Bull are ‘too fast’ for Ferrari to fight for Belgian GP win
- “Max still crying on the radio”- Fans react as Max Verstappen’s race engineer SASSY reply to the Dutchman after radio rant during Belgian GP Q2 drama
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Justin P Joy
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