For Lewis Hamilton, the Belgian Grand Prix is certainly ‘a weekend to forget’. After a disappointing sprint race, the disastrous race weekend for the Brit was complete with his early elimination during the qualifying for the main race. The visibly emotional Hamilton therefore has no more hope for a good outcome of the Grand Prix on Sunday: ‘It’s definitely a weekend to forget.’
The race weekend at Spa-Francorchamps is going from bad to worse for Lewis Hamilton. The Brit spun during the sprint qualifying on Friday, according to Hamilton himself due to a new part on his SF-25, and thus did not get higher than an eighteenth starting spot. Ferrari decided to bring upgrades for the Belgian sprint weekend. Hamilton then did not get higher than a fifteenth place during the sprint race, before he was out in Q1 in the qualifying. His fast lap time was scrapped at the last moment, because the world champion had gone over the track limits.
Hamilton was closer to tears than laughter when he spoke to the press after his early elimination. “It’s incredibly painful,” the Ferrari driver tells F1TV. “It’s really a very bad weekend so far.” Teammate Charles Leclerc, to his own great surprise, did secure a starting spot on the second row.
‘A weekend to forget’
Hamilton’s scrapped fast lap time was good enough for the Brit to move on to Q2. Because this was removed from the time lists, the seven-time world champion now starts from the sixteenth place. “Anything can happen here at Spa-Francorchamps, but I don’t know,” Hamilton seems to have given up hope for a good outcome of the Belgian race weekend. “I have no idea how it will go during the race. It will certainly be very difficult, given where I qualified. It’s definitely a weekend to forget.”
