Lewis Hamilton speaks about Mercedes lack of pace ahead Of #Belgian GP

Lewis Hamilton has complained bitterly about Mercedes‘ lack of pace at the Belgian GP.

It was another difficult day for Mercedes at Spa. Lewis Hamilton and Russell start fourth and fifth, but the seven-time champion was 1.838secs off the pace.

Hamilton said: “I never, ever thought we’d ever be two seconds off. It’s way, way worse than I thought.”

Mercedes have brought an upgrade to Spa and hoped that it and some rule changes they believed would affect Red Bull and Ferrari would bring them close to the front, but instead had their worst qualifying in terms of overall pace of the year.

Hamilton said: “I wish we had got it right and we had upgrades that put us forwards and we were fighting at the front but it isn’t the way it is.

“Believe me, it hurts. But you just have to laugh it off and say: ‘I am not fighting for a championship.’

“If I get too serious and too low, I have a responsibility to try and keep morale high. You can’t be discouraged. Yes, it sucks and it’s slow.”

Reminded that he was starting fourth and had a strong chance of continuing his run of five consecutive podiums, he said: “That’s how crazy it is. We’re really slow but starting fourth and maybe have a chance to get a podium, who knows… just have to be optimistic.

“This car this weekend has not told me it wants to win but maybe I will have a conversation with it tonight and tomorrow it will be a bit more responsive.

“We don’t know how fast or slow we will be tomorrow. That is the biggest gap we have ever had in qualifying, but what we do is talk about meetings we will have next week – where are we going to be with next year’s car? What we can take from our understanding of the data and apply it to make sure next year’s car is not like this one at all?”

Russell blamed tyre temperatures for the lack of performance, saying: “We are a little bit lost with the tyres, especially on a Saturday. It has been a limitation all season. The qualifying limitation becomes our race strength but we don’t have the right compromise.

“It is the inherent car limitations we have. Over the course of a season, we benefit a lot more on a Sunday than the limitations we have on a Saturday. We have probably only had three or four of 14 races that are really bad qualifyings – here and Imola and maybe Monaco. There is a clear theme and we want to find a solution but we don’t have an answer at the moment.”