Lewis Hamilton was left praying for better after enduring another difficult weekend for Mercedes at the Belgian Grand Prix.
The seven-time F1 world champion warned his car’s bouncing, which had curtailed much of his progress last season, had returned with a vengeance as his one-time championship rival Max Verstappen took the chequered flag 50 seconds up the road.
There was scant consolation that the result closed the gap to Fernando Alonso in third place in the drivers’ championship to a single point ahead of the month-long summer break.
“It was a kind of a non-eventful race,” said Hamilton afterwards. “The rear end is our biggest issue and we had big bouncing this weekend, back to the bouncing like last year.”
Asked to explain why the problem had re-emerged at the 12th race of the season, he said: “They don’t know. To me, it is a concern. But we’ll work through the data… and try to figure out what we do for the next race.
“I know what I want, I’m just praying for it and waiting for the day we get it.”
Hamilton packs up for the summer having still not ironed out his contract extension with Mercedes, with no timeframe set by either him nor team principal Toto Wolff over when that might be finalised.
The message after Spa remains that Hamilton will stay put for a few seasons at the team which has given him most of his success in the sport.
But Wolff was honest enough in his assessment of the weekend – “not great, the car was ok,” he said somewhat succinctly.
He added: “There is one car which was just faster – 1.5s per lap when he was pushing at the beginning of the stint. We’re bouncing on the straight, overheating the tyres and the braking. It’s a vicious circle. Frustrating to check out for the holidays like this.”
He did at least offer Hamilton at least some hope of improvement when the racing resumes at the Dutch Grand Prix at the end of August. The Austrian said: “I think we’re on the right trajectory.”
