Lewis Hamilton: Text message exchange with Russell – Belgian victory squandered?

A lot went against Ferrari driver Lewis Hamilton at the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa: following a collision with his former team-mate George Russell, he was handed a penalty, and after the race he was fined for accidentally hitting a mechanic. And has he perhaps thrown away his chance of victory?

Hamilton: Ferrari had the pace to win

After the race, Hamilton struck a generally positive note – he finished fourth: “I think the team made some great strategic decisions. I believe we’ve improved significantly in every area of how we work over the course of the weekend. And we had the pace to win.” Things had sounded very different during the race. On lap 18, Hamilton had complained about the strategy over the team radio. Then a lot went wrong during the pit stop too: the light turned green too quickly, causing Hamilton to accidentally run over one of his mechanics (no harm done!). What’s more, during the double pit stop under the Virtual Safety Car, Hamilton’s front wing couldn’t be replaced as planned, and he complained about that. In the end, however, Hamilton struck a conciliatory note – and expressed satisfaction with fourth place.

One matter still needed clarifying, though: on the first lap, Hamilton had taken out his former Mercedes team-mate George Russell following a collision. The Brit had fallen back due to battery problems. Both agreed: it was a racing incident, no hard feelings.

Text message exchange with Russell

Hamilton said after the race: “I’ll send him a text later, because we won’t see each other – everyone’s rushing out of here.” Drivers usually leave the circuit quickly after their media commitments and team briefings to head home. It’s easy to lose sight of one another in such circumstances.

However, the collision that ended Russell’s race gave Hamilton pause for thought: “I thought to myself, the last thing you’d ever want is for something like that to happen to your team-mate or your former team-mate – people you respect a great deal – and to George. But it’s happened now.”

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Hamilton sees positive developments

Hamilton’s verdict on the weekend is a positive one. The seven-time world champion said: “It shows that the cars are developing in the right direction, and it’s really simply down to the team doing such a great job and making improvements every weekend.”

Hamilton sets Hungaroring record

Formula 1 heads to the Hungaroring this coming weekend. And there, Hamilton is something of the ‘King of the Ring’. He has won the Hungarian Grand Prix eight times. That’s almost an all-time F1 record: Michael Schumacher won the French Grand Prix eight times, whilst Hamilton himself has won the British Grand Prix nine times. Hamilton is by far the only driver to have won at the Hungaroring eight times (Schumacher four times, Senna three times).

How does Hamilton rate his chances of extending his record this year? The Ferrari driver said: “I hope we can do it. First of all, I need to perform well next week and make sure I deliver in Budapest to the best of my ability. We need to pull everything together and fight for it.”