'Destroyed' Hamilton slammed with sharp criticism after awful result

08:00, 26 Jul

byTobia Elia

F1 analyst Peter Windsor analyzed Lewis Hamilton’s disastrous result in the Belgian GP sprint qualifying, which came after an unusual rear-wheel lock-up at the Bus Stop chicane.

On the eve of the weekend, expectations were quite high around Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton, following the significant changes made to the rear suspension during last week’s filming day at Mugello.

More broadly, these updates marked the culmination of a project that required months of hard work by the Maranello engineers to address a highly sensitive area like the suspension system.

The first on-track result, however, was a total flop—at least for the seven-time world champion.

The British driver finished the sprint qualifying in eighteenth place and was eliminated in SQ1 after an unusual rear-wheel lock-up that he himself admitted he had never experienced before in his career.

Indeed, it seemed quite strange that a driver of Lewis Hamilton’s caliber could make such a simple yet costly mistake—something Martin Brundle also pointed out, highlighting instead a rear axle failure on the SF-25 during braking.

Lewis Hamilton at Spa

Windsor weighs in on Hamilton's mishap at Spa

Analyzing what happened to the seven-time world champion on his YouTube channel, Peter Windsor also shared his thoughts on the matter: ''He was looking pretty good on his opening lap in Q1 till he got to the bottom of the hill around the Stavelot area through a right-hander.''

''There was a lot of dust in front of him because Kimi Antonelli had gone off in the Mercedes. He rejoined, but it was a big, wide lose, lots of gravel on the track as he was rejoining.''

''Lewis had a moment there, and then obviously that was a slow lap, then had to do a second lap and on the second lap, pretty good lap, would have got into the top six or seven for sure, but lost it completely under braking.''

Windsor also added: ''I've never seen Lewis do something like that, I mean he probably has but I can't remember a time when he's done something just as basic as that. And that to me is complete lack of feel, certainly for the back end of the car.''

''Probably the rears were massively overheated and of course he'd done two laps by then, which wasn't a good thing. Very sad to see that.''

Finally, he added: ''He looked a little bit like the old Lewis that we'd seen at Silverstone, nice early entries. He must be absolutely destroyed now mentally. I would think to be starting right at the back there, three places from the back, and spinning like that in front of the grandstands... the whole thing complete mess for Lewis Hamilton.''