Untelevised Hamilton radio message reveals costly Ferrari issue

17:47, 29 Jul

Updated: 19:01, 29 Jul

bySavannah Lenz

Lewis Hamilton had many struggles during the Belgian Grand Prix. While some were shown on the TV coverage, one important moment was not. Towards the end of the race, Hamilton was unable to attack because he was running out of fuel.

While chasing down Alex Albon for sixth position, Hamilton said to his race engineer, Riccardo Adami, "I can’t attack because I’ve got no fuel, mate! Can I keep pushing or not?"

After checking, Adami told Hamilton to keep his position, having Hamilton end the race in seventh position. These messages came after the call to lift and the cost came halfway through the race.

Hamilton left with little fuel

Speaking to Sky Sports after the race, Hamilton explained what had happened. “Maybe right at the end I would’ve been able to attack him, but we underfuelled."

He explained, “Basically we underfuelled for the wing we had.”

Ferrari brought new upgrades to the Belgian Grand Prix. However, they only had one practice session to test the upgrades out. While they had a filming day before the race weekend, Hamilton was adamant that there was no testing of the new suspension.

He said, "We didn’t test. It was a photo shoot day, basically. So did like 10 laps or whatever—14 laps of filming. It was not a test."

However, Hamilton also said that he was trying out parts that his teammate, Charles Leclerc recieved in Monteal. Leclerc did not report any issues with underfueling, only Hamilton.