Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur points out Lewis Hamilton’s mistakes in his early dismissal in Belgian GP SQ

Ferrari team boss reviews Lewis Hamilton
Ferrari team boss reviews Lewis Hamilton's "mistakes" during the SQ session in Belgium (Getty Images)

Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseurrev reviews Lewis Hamilton's two "mistakes" during the Sprint Qualifying session of the 2025 F1 Belgian Grand Prix. Hamilton faced a major rear wheel lockup during his final run in SQ1, which sent him spinning into the runoff area entering the final corner.

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This was a rare sight to see. Although locking up the front tires is quite common with F1 drivers, doing the same with the rears is often regarded as a rookie mistake. But when Hamilton did the same, it was rather shocking. He remained stuck at P18, from where he will start the Sprint tomorrow.

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Reviewing the session, Ferrari team principal Frederic Vasseur called out Hamilton for his two "mistakes." The first one was during an earlier lap in the session when the track was covered in gravel and dust from a driver going off.

"Regarding the first mistake, I think he was distracted by Tsunoda going through the dust, because you can clearly see a big cloud in the onboard footage," Vasseur said.
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"As for the second mistake, I believe he was just a bit too aggressive on the brakes," he added.

While Vasseur seemed to blame Hamilton for the issue, F1 insider Anthony Davidson had a different perspective.


F1 analyst hints towards issue with car after Lewis Hamilton's disappointing SQ session

Lewis Hamilton was seemingly dejected after the Sprint Qualifying session. However, Anthony Davidson was rather surprised that he was taking the blame on himself. Speaking on Sky, he mentioned that there was a very small chance that Hamilton might have shifted the car's brake bias to the rear, which would have caused the lockup.

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"They will clearly see that there was rear locking, and it’s quite hard for a driver to cause that, unless you’ve been a bit careless and thrown your brake bias too far to the rear," he said.

Davidson further mentioned that there wasn't a lot Lewis Hamilton could have done, further suggesting an issue with the car itself.

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"There’s very little a driver can do in these digital cars that they drive. They’re not very analogue these days. There’s only so much you can do on a flappy paddle gearbox to make the thing try to lock up. No matter what he says, the car spun him round to a certain degree," he added.

While Lewis Hamilton will be piloting the SF-25 from P18 tomorrow, his teammate, Charles Leclerc, will start from P4. He had a much more comfortable session around the Spa-Francorchamps circuit and seemed to have extracted the most out of the car.

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Edited by Gunaditya Tripathi
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