Hamilton grateful for mechanics after securing P3 for Belgian GP

Lewis Hamilton expressed his gratitude to his mechanics after his crash in FP3 threatened to rule him out of qualifying completely ahead of his decent run to P3 in Q3.

Hamilton ran wide at turn 12 earlier on Saturday, causing damage to the car, but he was able to return for qualifying and will line up behind the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel.

Hamilton told ex-F1 driver Timo Glock after the session: "P3 was a terrible session for me and of course, it’s painful because you know how hard people work to build those parts, and how hard the guys work to build the car, so I knew that was going to be a tough challenge.

"My guys are just faultless and always give 110%, so I’m really grateful for that and was just trying to pay them back with a good qualifying session.

"Considering I missed all of P3 and a lot of P1, actually, I’m really grateful I’m up here.

"Ferrari have done a great job today - Charles did an exceptional job - and I hope we can bring the fight to them tomorrow."