Hamilton says Spa practice shunt compromised his race pace – RaceFans

Lewis Hamilton believes he may have fought for the victory within the Belgian Grand Prix had he not crashed in third apply.

The Ferrari driver completed fourth at Spa-Francorchamps after an eventful grand prix. He collided with George Russell at Les Combes on the opening lap, which led to Russell’s retirement and a 5 second penalty being handed to Hamilton, earlier than operating right into a Ferrari mechanic throughout a pit lane mishap.

Russell admitted after the accident that he noticed the conflict as a racing incident that each of them had contributed to. However Hamilton apologised for his half within the collision.

“Finally, I’m sorry for George as a result of that clearly ended his race,” Hamilton instructed the official F1 channel. “However I do agree that it was a racing incident.

“It’s not like I went in aggressive and was misplaced or something like that. I feel it was simply an unlucky state of affairs, which occurs in racing. Then I had injury as nicely, so I carried that by the race. It was a tricky one. I’m vastly grateful for the factors given the injury and given the crash yesterday.”

Hamilton had given his Ferrari mechanics a busy few hours on Saturday afternoon after crashing his automotive on the exit of the Fagnes chicane on the finish of the ultimate apply session, however his SF26 had been fastened in time for him to take part in qualifying. Nonetheless, Hamilton believes that accident compromised his efficiency for the rest of the weekend and his remaining consequence and he may have joined workforce mate Charles Leclerc in preventing for victory with out the crash.

“Finally, it was not a very good weekend from my facet,” he stated. “I feel my race tempo was sturdy immediately and I feel with out the injury, and doubtless with out yesterday, I feel we may have been preventing for the win immediately.

“Even with the injury I used to be difficult Charles [Leclerc]. It’s what’s, we transfer on, and hope we are able to have a greater weekend subsequent weekend.”

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