{"id":23245,"date":"2025-07-25T17:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T17:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/23245\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T17:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T17:31:08","slug":"lewis-hamilton-frustrated-as-career-first-leads-to-early-belgian-grand-prix-sprint-qualifying-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/23245\/","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton frustrated as \u2018career first\u2019 leads to early Belgian Grand Prix Sprint Qualifying exit"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Lewis Hamilton was left visibly frustrated after qualifying in 18th place for Saturday\u2019s Sprint in Belgium following a session-ending spin.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">While <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/teams\/ferrari\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ferrari<\/a> brought a significant upgrade package to Spa-Francorchamps, seven-time champion Hamilton was unable to feel the benefits on Friday, shaking his head when asked if the new suspension had made the SF-25 more drivable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">An error on his opening lap of SQ1 had left the Briton with work to do on his final effort, but a spin at the final chicane as the chequered flag fell sealed his position on the penultimate row.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Asked what had happened in the session, Hamilton said simply: \u201cI spun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Pressed on whether rear locking had caused the incident, he added: \u201cYeah. The first time in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Attempting to find some form of positivity, Hamilton reflected: \u201cTomorrow\u2019s a new day. Obviously, I\u2019m massively frustrated. A lot of work has gone in and to be there is not great. Hopefully, tomorrow is going to be better.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">On the other side of the garage, <a class=\"text-brand-hot-red underline decoration-1 hover:decoration-[3px]\" href=\"https:\/\/www.formula1.com\/en\/drivers\/charles-leclerc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Charles Leclerc<\/a> positioned his Ferrari on the second row of the grid, although the 0.768s margin to pole left him with conflicting emotions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">\u201cThe feeling was pretty good which, to me, it\u2019s a mixed feeling,\u201d said Leclerc. \u201cOn one side, I\u2019m happy that the car feels better and, on the other, even if the car feels pretty good, we are still seven tenths off, which is a huge amount of time.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">\u201cYes, it\u2019s a long track, but it\u2019s still a big amount of time. So there is a lot of work to be done.<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">&#8220;We just need to add grip to this car at the end of the day. I don\u2019t think we do anything particularly wrong, but we just need more grip that we don\u2019t seem to have for now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lewis Hamilton was left visibly frustrated after qualifying in 18th place for Saturday\u2019s Sprint in Belgium following a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23246,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1687,372,6537,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-23245","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-f1","8":"tag-f1","9":"tag-formula-1","10":"tag-formula1","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23245"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23245\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23246"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}