Hamilton claims his Ferrari feels "the same as before" despite the new rear suspension

Ahead of this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix, seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton claims that he did not feel big changes to the behaviour of his SF-25 during the filming day at Mugello.

Having brought a heavily upgraded floor to the Austrian Grand Prix, Ferrari are set to introduce a revised rear suspension at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, following test sessions at Mugello.

The Mugello outing saw Ferrari use up their second of two allocated filming days on which teams are restricted to a maximum of 200km and to Pirelli's special demo tyres.

The aim of the test at the Tuscan track was to collect data on the new suspension and to find the setup the team can extract the most from the SF-25 regarding the aero-mechanical interaction of the new setup.

Leclerc racked up a total of 19 laps in the morning before Hamilton completed the same distance with the new design that features a reworked wishbone mounting point to the gearbox.

Ferrari hope that the refined rear suspension will improve the ride height management to reduce squat and improve ground clearance control, enhancing the SF-25's aerodynamic efficiency.

Asked to explain the reason of the one-day filming outing, Hamilton stressed that the heavily limited mileage meant that it was impossible to get a real feel for the upgraded suspension.

"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. [It felt] the same as before. So the same as it did the weeks before."

Pressed on to reveal what Ferrari expects from the upgraded rear suspension, Hamilton noted that the Scuderia is eager to find out the impact the latest development has on the behaviour of the SF-25 as the simulator showed hardly any differences compared to the previous configuration.

"I think, well, firstly, we'll get to test the suspension tomorrow, and I’m sure there's going to be learnings from it. We'll figure out how to fine-tune it and try to extract performance from it. On the simulator, there's no difference.

"But I'm sure across different circuits, perhaps there'll be benefits. For me, the positive thing is arriving at the filming day where you see that new bits are coming."

Speaking of Ferrari's upgrades across the opening twelve rounds of the season, Hamilton stated: "You see that we are getting development. Because in general, we had an upgraded floor in Bahrain. Then it was quite some time before we got another upgrade—I think it was Austria.

"And pace-wise it wasn’t necessarily what I thought we would have. If you look at some of the other teams, they bring small pieces every single weekend—like Red Bull often do or Mercedes do, for example.

"Whereas these are more like big chunks along the way. So I was just really happy to see that there clearly is a big push back at the factory.

"There are a lot of changes, and then to see the results of those changes takes time. So I was just really grateful to see that we got new parts. We'll try and put them to use this weekend."