Red Bull ‘a little bit quicker’ at F1 Belgian GP - Hamilton
Lewis Hamilton believes Red Bull are currently “a little bit quicker” than Mercedes at Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix, while he also feels Racing Point and Renault are right on the pace.
Just 0.096s split the pacesetting Red Bull of Max Verstappen, Daniel Ricciardo’s Renault and Hamilton’s Mercedes during a close day of practice at Spa-Francorchamps on Friday.
With the top eight in FP2 separated by just eight-tenths, Hamilton says several teams are evenly matched heading into qualifying in Belgium.
“I think the Red Bulls are just a little bit quicker at the moment, but even Racing Point I think is right with us, then also Daniel Ricciardo and the Renaults are very close,” Hamilton said.
“That makes it exciting. We’ve got some work to do, that’s for sure, to dial in the car a bit more, but it doesn’t feel bad at all.
“The field is going to get closer as we continue to develop, the whole of F1 develops and it’s already showing that this weekend, we seem to be so close with everyone, and we’ve got to understand why.
“Whether they’ve taken a step or we’ve taken a step back, or if it’s just a track layout, or downforce level, who knows, we’ll work on that. But I’m excited for an interesting race that’s for sure.”
Teammate Valtteri Bottas topped opening practice on his 31st birthday but slipped to P6 in the afternoon as he struggled with a lack of front-end grip in his Mercedes.
"It seems very close and I think that on Fridays we’ve seen other teams performing maybe a bit better than us on the Saturdays, but it looks the closest we’ve seen so far,” the Finn explained.
“It’s going to make it exciting tomorrow. I’m sure we’re going to improve a lot, but it depends on the others.
“The whole day the car has been quite understeery and still, in second practice, lacking a bit of front-end grip here and there,” he added.
“I think for me the main lap time gains will come from a stronger front end to be able to get the car into the places it needs to be in the corners.”
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