Hamilton feels he had the pace to challenge for the race victory in Spa
Lewis Hamilton admitted the Belgian Grand Prix was "not a good weekend" overall after overcoming an opening-lap collision, car damage, a five-second time penalty and a pit lane incident to finish fourth for Ferrari at Spa-Francorchamps.
The seven-time world champion was involved in one of the key incidents of the race on the opening lap when he made contact with former Mercedes team-mate George Russell at Turn 5. The collision spun Russell into the gravel trap and out of the race, while Hamilton continued with damage to his Ferrari SF-26.
After reviewing the incident, the FIA stewards handed Hamilton a five-second time penalty for causing the collision, although Russell himself declined to blame the Ferrari driver.
Hamilton also felt the incident fell into the category of a racing incident. The Briton insisted the contact had not been the result of an overly aggressive move.
"Ultimately, sorry for George because that obviously ended his race, but I did think… I do agree that it was a racing incident. It's not like I went in aggressive and was misplaced or anything like that. I think it was just an unfortunate scenario, which happens in racing."
Hamilton revealed the contact also left his Ferrari carrying damage for the remainder of the race: "Then I had damage as well, so I carried that through the race. It was a tough one."
The difficult afternoon continued during his only pit stop. Hamilton served his five-second penalty under a Virtual Safety Car before Ferrari released him while a mechanic was still attempting to adjust the front wing. The mechanic was knocked to the ground by the front-right tyre but escaped injury, with the FIA later fining Ferrari for an unsafe release while clearing Hamilton of any responsibility.
Despite the setbacks, Hamilton delivered an impressive recovery drive. After dropping back following his penalty, he overtook Oscar Piastri to finish fourth, at times running close behind team-mate Charles Leclerc.
Reflecting on the race, Hamilton was satisfied to salvage a strong points haul: "Hugely grateful for the points given the damage and given the crash yesterday."
The Ferrari driver had also endured a difficult Saturday after crashing heavily in the closing moments of final practice, leaving the mechanics with extensive repair work before qualifying.
Looking back on the weekend as a whole, Hamilton admitted he had fallen short of his own expectations.: "Ultimately, not a good weekend from my side."
Even so, he believed Ferrari had the pace to challenge for victory had circumstances been different.
"I think my race pace was strong today and I think without the damage, and probably without yesterday, I think we could have been fighting for the win today."
Hamilton pointed to his ability to remain close to Leclerc despite carrying damage as evidence of Ferrari's competitiveness.
"Even with the damage I was challenging Charles. It is what it is, we move on, and hope we can have a better weekend next weekend."
The 106-time Grand Prix winner also praised Ferrari's operational performance despite the problems that unfolded during the race.
"The team did a really good job today, both with the strategy and the execution of the race, and the mechanics were excellent throughout the weekend, including during the pit stops."
Given everything that happened over the course of the weekend, Hamilton felt fourth place represented a respectable outcome.
"Given the damage, the five-second penalty and everything that happened yesterday, I'm grateful to have come away with some points."
Hamilton concluded by promising to continue working with Ferrari to produce cleaner weekends in the second half of the season.
"It wasn't the smoothest weekend from my side, but we'll keep building and working hard to put together stronger weekends going forward," concluded Hamilton.
