Seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton suffered a spin during the Belgian Grand Prix sprint qualifying when he was on a flying lap in SQ1. He spun out unexpectedly on the penultimate corner at Spa-Francorchamps. A technical fault is likely the cause behind the incident.
Ferrari came into the race weekend with fresh upgrades for the SF-25 F1 car, including the new rear suspension. Unfortunately, Hamilton’s car span as he downshifted for the corner, pushing him off the track. As a result, he will start from 18th in Saturday’s sprint race.
Anthony Davidson of Sky Sports F1 noted the clunking in the gearbox audio just before Hamilton spun out. He said:
“I hear a lot of locking in the rear axle on the car. That clunking is backlash in the gearbox. I don’t blame the driver for that moment. Something is going on there in the downshift phase of that Ferrari. I give Lewis the benefit of the doubt for that one.”
Sky F1 presenter Martin Brundle confirmed that it was likely a technical issue rather than a mistake on Hamilton’s part. He said:
“It looks like a technical issue. Nobody will be more surprised than Lewis. It’s almost like the engine sort of stalled out, and every time he pulled another shift it’s just locked the rear axle.”
The 40-year-old was happy that Ferrari had brought in upgrades for the SF-25 this weekend. When asked if he expected a performance improvement, Hamilton said on Thursday:
“No. I think well firstly we’ll get to test the suspension tomorrow and I’m sure there’s gonna be learnings from it, we’ll kind of figure out how to fine-tune it and to try to extract performance from it. On the simulator, there’s no difference, but I’m sure across different circuits, perhaps, there’ll be benefits.
“So I think for me the positive thing is arriving at the filming day, where you see that new bits are coming, you see that we are getting development because in general…We had an upgraded floor in Bahrain, then it was quite some time before we got another upgrade, I think it was Austria, and so…Pace-wise wasn’t necessarily to what I would have thought we would have.
“If you look at some of the other teams, they bring them small pieces every single weekend, like Red Bull often do or Mercedes do, for example. Ours are more like big chunks along the way. So, I think I was just really happy to see that there clearly is a big push back at the factory.
“There are a lot of changes and then to see the results of those changes takes time. So, I was just really grateful to see that we’ve got new parts. We’ll try and put them to use this weekend.”
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