Lewis Hamilton Reveals New Race Engineer Added to Spa Belgian GP Struggle
Ferrari entered Spa with an upgrade package, but Hamilton faced issues in the sprint race and qualifying. However, he sounded positive about his car after the Belgian GP that saw him charge his way through the pack in the early stages of the race on intermediate tires.
The race start was delayed by nearly an hour due to rain. Despite a wet Spa-Francorchamps, the seven-time world champion's confidence and experience propelled him forward. Ferrari also made a quick call to pit him first after the racing line began to dry, switching to medium tires before the other drivers, which gave him an extra edge.
Hamilton started the race in the pit lane after Ferrari breached parc ferme conditions following the qualifying session to fit his car with a new internal combustion engine, MGU-H, MGU-K, energy store, turbocharger, control electronics, and exhaust. Speaking on starting at the back after making overnight changes to his SF-25, the Briton said:
Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Scuderia Ferrari on the drivers parade prior to the F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone Circuit on July 06, 2025 in Northampton, England.
Lewis Hamilton of Great Britain and Scuderia Ferrari on the drivers parade prior to the F1 Grand Prix of Great Britain at Silverstone Circuit on July 06, 2025 in Northampton, England."Obviously, massively challenging being all the way back there, but I made some changes overnight. So much in the build-up to this week, obviously with the upgrade that we have — there's basically two elements to it, and one of those elements we had to test back in Montreal, but I didn't end up testing it.
"Charles ended up testing it and ended up using it for part of it for a couple of races, so he's definitely — he did a great job today and he's feeling more acclimatized. For me, it was the first time using it, and that spin that we had caught me out [in sprint qualifying] because we also had a change of engineer, so we were 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."
The previous round at Silverstone saw Hamilton point out the danger involved while racing under reduced visibility due to the spray from the rain. Addressing the delayed race start at Spa, Hamilton explained that the FIA was too cautious about it this time. He said:
"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 around [during the safety car]. So I think they were probably overreacting from the last race where we asked them not to restart the race too early because the 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."
Hamilton's teammate, Charles Leclerc, secured a podium finish in P3. Adding that the car had been improving, the 40-year-old driver said:
"We outscored Mercedes some points, which was great. Charles did a great job. Clearly the car is improving because Charles was able to hold on to another podium, and so I'm still gonna work hard next week to try and get across."
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