Lewis Hamilton has revealed that a change in his engineering team only added to the complications he and Ferrari faced on a tricky weekend at Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix.
The seven-time world champion made a strong recovery in the race on Sunday to charge from 18th at the start to finish seventh, having switched to a wet-weather set-up overnight.
It was a small consolation after what had been a pretty dire opening two days of action at Spa-Francorchamps.
Hamilton had suffered an unusual spin in sprint qualifying on Friday that left him 18th on the grid for Saturday.
Then he failed to make it out of Q1 in qualifying after having his best lap time deleted for breaking track limits at Raidillon.
Reflecting on how things had played out, Hamilton said that a host of factors had come together to make things difficult for him, which included Ferrari’s upgraded rear suspension, new brake characteristics and an engineering reshuffle.
The latter aspect is understood to relate to a new performance engineer brought on board to work with Hamilton and his race engineer Riccardo Adami.
While Ferrari has declined to offer details on who the new performance engineer is, it is understood they have been promoted from another role within the Maranello team, as Hamilton suggested it is someone he has worked with at his "previous team", presumably meaning Mercedes.
Speaking about the change after the Belgian GP, Hamilton said that both he and the new performance engineer had had to go through a steep learning curve.
“It’s not easy to switch engineers within the middle of the season, but it's someone that I've known for years [and was] actually from my previous team with me, but not in that position.
“So we're getting used to each other and having to learn super, super quick.
“I think the changes that we had [to the car this weekend] really caught both of us out, but I think we did a great job overnight and we'll just get stronger and stronger together.”
Hamilton blamed the spin that put him out of sprint qualifying on a new “component”, which is understood to relate to a change that meant the rear brakes bit more when he applied greater pressure than in free practice.
Leclerc has been running this new configuration for a few races already, and had been caught out by the new braking characteristics in Canada, which Hamilton said caused Leclerc's crash at that track.
Spa was Hamilton’s first experience of it and, although it proved troublesome early on, it is something that both he and the squad are convinced will prove better for him longer term.
Reflecting on everything thrown at him in Belgium, Hamilton said: “Obviously with the upgrade that we have, there's basically two elements to it.
“One of those elements, we had it to test back in Montreal, but I didn't end up testing it. Charles did. He ended up using part of it for a couple of races.
"So he definitely did a great job today. He's feeling more comfortable and acclimatised.
"For me, it was the first time using it and that spin we had caught me out because I didn’t expect it.
“Also [there is the] change of engineer, we're both in the deep end basically. And I think we did a really good job overnight to rectify some of those tweaks and fine tune it.
“The car was so much better to drive today. So I had a lot of fun trying to make my way through.”
While things had not gone well early in the Spa weekend, Hamilton said he feels upbeat about how things can move forward from here.
“I think this one is definitely one to put behind me,” he added. “I definitely feel confident going forward.
“I learned more about the car today, fine-tuned it. I'll set that up better for next week.
“I will be at the factory on Wednesday. So yeah, I don't see why we can't have better results moving forward.”
