Why Hamilton sees Mercedes as ‘still the team to beat’ at Belgian GP

Lewis Hamilton has tipped Mercedes and McLaren to impress at Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix, after Ferrari seemingly struggled in Friday practice at Spa-Francorchamps.

Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli was fastest in 1m45.944s yesterday, leading McLaren’s Lando Norris and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by two tenths and half a second respectively.

The lead Ferrari, driven by Hamilton, was 0.747s adrift of the Silver Arrow, with the seven-time world champion impressed by its two former teams.

“Mercedes is always the team to beat, they have been all year,” Hamilton reckoned. “On a track with long straights like this you would expect that to be the case. I think they're going to be very strong.

“McLaren is looking good. McLaren is really good at high-speed corners it seems, medium- and high-speed corners.”

Fast curves indeed is where Ferrari is losing out according to Hamilton, who referred to the second sector of the Belgian track.

Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari

Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images

“I think FP1 looks a bit stronger than we anticipated and then FP2 everyone like jumped up and took another step,” he analysed. “So that was probably more realistic. And then, the car generally feels good, but we're lacking a little bit in the middle sector, so we're trying to figure out why.”

Asked if he could feel anything as a limitation for the car in that sector, the Briton replied: “It feels a little bit downforce-related, the balance is good in general. You would have more load on the car if you could, but then you need the speed on the straights, so we'll do a deep dive tonight to figure out how we can pick up that middle sector and not lose hopefully [top speed].”

Regardless of Hamilton’s comments, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur was keen to play down any early conclusions that might be drawn from free practice.

“If you have a look on the last three or four Fridays, it's not always representative of the qualifying,” the Frenchman pointed out. “I think we are all using different modes, different level of fuel and so on. Let's see tomorrow afternoon.”

In the last three non-sprint weekends, only once did the team topping Friday practice end up on pole position.