Lewis Hamilton was left feeling downbeat after the opening day of practice at the Belgian Grand Prix, with the Mercedes driver acknowledging that being 1.2 seconds behind Lando Norris’s pace-setting time in FP2 was “not great”.
The Silver Arrows arrived into the weekend off the back of a good run of form, having clinched back-to-back victories in Austria and Great Britain before Hamilton took a podium in Hungary.
However, the team did not look to have quite the same pace as they hit the track at Spa-Francorchamps on Friday, with Hamilton ending second practice in 10th on the timesheets, though the seven-time world champion took fifth place earlier on in FP1.
Asked for his reflections on the day after jumping out of the car, Hamilton explained: “It was a pretty bad day. I don’t know what to say! Obviously it’s been feeling great in the past couple of races, it just felt completely different today.
“We worked on it, the first session was not great, but then in the second session we made some changes. It started off great, and then when I got to the soft tyre I just couldn’t improve, and there’s a bunch of balance issues we have through that.
“It was better in the session, but everyone else went even better, so to be 1.2 seconds behind is not great.”
While the weather has remained dry so far at the iconic circuit, the possibility of rain is still on the forecast for the rest of the event. This may not be welcome news to everyone, but Hamilton for one would welcome such conditions.
Quizzed on how he was feeling about the remainder of the weekend given the chance of inclement weather, Hamilton answered with a laugh: “Fantastic! Because if it’s dry then we’re not going to – at the moment – be in the greatest of places, but overnight we can make some changes for sure.
“I think if it rains then that opens it up a little bit and hopefully we can do a better job, and I think the car should be better in the wet than it is in the dry.”