Wurz analyzes: Why Hamilton struggled with his Ferrari in Belgium

12:04, 01 Aug

Updated: 12:55, 01 Aug

byLudo van Denderen

Alexander Wurz saw Lewis Hamilton struggling last weekend in Spa-Francorchamps. The Austrian points to Ferrari's new rear suspension, which seems to have played a role in this.

The Belgian Grand Prix was one for Lewis Hamilton to quickly forget. It was a weekend with botched qualifyings for the sprint race and the Grand Prix, but above all a strange spin on Friday that many remember.

As he approached the start-finish straight, the Brit made a bizarre spin, something totally uncharacteristic for the seven-time world champion.

Former F1 driver Alexander Wurz also saw it happen and suspects that the new suspension of the Ferrari could have played a role.

"I think Ferrari understands that they have to control the stability of the rear better for Lewis to be able to not think of how to drive, for Lewis to be able to drive how his instinct just wants to drive," the Austrian explains in an exclusive interview with GPblog.

Lewis Hamilton was on the attack in the wet conditions at Spa

Lewis Hamilton was struggling with his Ferrari

"With the suspension change here it looked even more edgy to drive. It looked more snappy and not correlated with the aero characteristics and perhaps the complex recovery system and brake balance migration. Bottom line it looked less userfriendly as before."

"Now the big question is, can they iron that out, or is it fundamentally not matched with the aero? Brake entry stability is absolutely key to laptime."

Wurz explains Hamilton's potential problem

Wurz saw that Hamilton had the same problem in Turn 8. "This is where Charles (Leclerc, ed.), he doesn't mind so much that the rear steps out, but it's also not fast as it seems not progressive controlable rotation."

"When you are asking too much of the rear you start to overheat. So you do setup compromises, you have to take grip off the car."

Wurz saw that Hamilton and Charles had the same problem in Turn 8 already in free practice. According to the current analyst, the Spa-Francorchamps circuit is the ideal benchmark to uncover this issue.

"You have long [corner] entries and you have fast entries, you have change of direction and you have hard braking, you have combined braking too like Turn 8. So all together you can assess the car movement and suspension kinematics very well."

"But kinematics need to match the change of aero load during braking and turn in, so does the migration of brake balance and diff. (differential, ed.), settings as well. It seemed not in harmony."

Should Ferrari modify Hamilton's car?

Bad news for Hamilton. According to Wurz, the upcoming weekend in Hungary is not necessarily going to be better for the British driver: "Oh, no, Hungary could be very challenging too, but equally we need to see if Ferrari might have understood and fixed the issues," the Austrian says.

Wurz also notices that Hamilton has a tough Season. "Yes, it is. It looks like it. I mean I'm giving you a technical analytics here, which maybe it's not true. But I remember watching once the Red Bull in Austria and I said 'this new aero package is not working and has some small stalls,' which I commentated on in live TV."

"They changed the areo post Austria. I am always watching cars critically, but of course not having data, I rely only on what I see on TV, so what I say might not be the full picture."

According to Wurz, this does not mean that Ferrari should change the suspension for Hamilton back to the old version.

"It depends what changes they can do, or other aerodynamic upgrades they have coming. So if they maybe know that with some certain changes of rear diffuser they could actually remain a more stable rear aero. I don't know. Laptimes in Hungary will tell us."