Hamilton issues worrying Ferrari warning: 'The gap to Mercedes will be bigger here'

Following his home Grand Prix, Hamilton closed the gap to championship leader Kimi Antonelli after the Italian suffered a car issue that left him outside the points. Heading into this weekend, the seven-time world champion trails the young Italian by 32 points.

Looking ahead to the Belgian Grand Prix, Hamilton expects Ferrari to trail Mercedes considerably due to the track's layout. He believes the gap will be well over a couple of tenths.

Speaking to GPblog, among others, he explained: "On this track, it's very difficult… This track has lots and lots of straights.

The Briton once again praised Ferrari's approach of continuously introducing updates to the SF-26 throughout the current season.

He added: "In terms of just upgrades, I'm so proud of the team, they're just continuing to push to optimise the car. We're just making fine adjustments to it every week, which is great to see. Rather than one upgrade, several months later and then another comes, it's like every weekend we're just upgrading little bits whenever we find something."