Lewis Hamilton’s rollercoaster Ferrari season continued at Spa, as he turned a disappointing first couple of days into a charging performance in the race – and overcame a few hurdles along the way.
There’s was a lot to deal with, as he had a new performance engineer in his corner, albeit someone he knows from his Mercedes days.
Meanwhile the team introduced an upgraded suspension package that had been trialled at a filming day. There was also another unspecified mechanical element that Charles Leclerc had previously tried on his car, but which Lewis had not yet run before Spa.
Throw in the fact that it was a sprint weekend and life became quite complicated, especially on Friday, with just FP1 in which to sort things out.
A frustrated P18 in sprint qualifying, Lewis was then demoted from P7 to P16 in Saturday’s Q1 session after losing his lap time to track limits, a mistake he took the blame for.
With little to lose he then joined three other drivers in dropping out of parc ferme and starting from the pitlane with added downforce for the rain expected on Sunday, taking the opportunity to add a fresh PU to his pool.
The delayed start and extra safety car laps meant that he couldn’t use the full potential of his bigger wing, but it was certainly a help in the early wet laps as he charged up from an initial 18th to 13th.
He then made a superbly-timed call to switch to slicks on lap 11, which put him into seventh by the time those ahead had pitted.
High downforce then became something of a handicap and he spent the rest of the race behind Alex Albon.
Nevertheless it had been a good day, and he had a smile on his face after the flag.
“Obviously massively challenging being all the way back there,” he said when I asked him about his race. “But we made some changes overnight.
“So much in the build-up to this week, obviously, with the upgrade that we had. There’s basically two elements to it. One of those elements, we had it to test back in Montreal, but I didn’t end up testing it. Charles ended up testing it, and he ended up using part of it for a couple of races.
“He did a great job today, and he’s feeling more acclimatised. For me it was the first time using it, and that spin that we had [on Friday] caught me out, because we didn’t have settings.
“Also a change of engineer, so we’re both in the deep end, basically. And I think we did a really good job overnight to rectify some of those, tweak it, fine tune it. And the car was so much better today to drive. So I had a lot of fun trying to make my way through.”
Hamilton felt that the race should have got going a little earlier, a view shared by others who had added downforce for the wet but could not take full advantage.
“We obviously started the race a little bit too late, I would say. I kept shouting, like, it’s ready to go, it’s ready to go. And they kept going round and round and round.
“So I think they’re probably overreacting from the last race, where we asked them not to restart the race too early, because visibility was bad. And I think this weekend they just went a bit too much the other way, because we didn’t need a rolling start, for example.
He added: “Definitely could have done a standing start, especially at the end there, because it was almost a dry line. It was hardly any spray. So definitely could have done that.”
Lewis said that he got the change to slicks just right.
“I’m really working to try to finesse that, to get it right each time. And I think I would say that’s been an area for me that’s not always been the strongest. And in the last race I called it, it was maybe a one lap too early, and I think this today was spot on.
“I probably could have just about done it one lap earlier, but it was like pretty much right there.”
Hamilton admitted that it hadn’t been a great weekend for him in the context of various changes. However, the race turned it into a positive.
“We obviously had these upgrades,” he said. “Everyone back at the factory works so hard. And then when you come and put a performance like I had in these past two days, it’s tough, because that’s not what the team deserves.
“And as I said, it wasn’t a case of necessarily coming in and not being in the right mind through the weekend, there were a few factors that did affect particularly on the Friday. Saturday, was just me.
“But I recovered today. So got some points, we outscored Mercedes on points, which is great. Charles did a great job. Clearly, the car is improving because Charles was able to hold on to another podium.”
Regarding the change to his engineering team he said: “”It’s not easy to switch engineers within the middle of a season, but it’s someone that I’ve known for years, who was actually on my previous team with me, but not in that position.
“So we’re getting used to each other and learning, having to learn, like, super, super quick. As I said, I think the changes that we had really caught both of us out.
“But I think we did a great job overnight, and we’ll just get stronger and stronger together.”
Lewis agreed that Spa gave him something to build on.
“I think this one’s definitely one to kind of put behind me, and I definitely feel confident going forward from here as I said, having learned more about the car today, fine tuned it. I’ll set that up better for next week, be at the factory on Wednesday. So yeah, I don’t see why we won’t have better results going forward.”
Adam Cooper F1 