Ferrari applauded ‘awesome’ Lewis Hamilton moment in unheard radio at the Belgian Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton put on an overtaking clinic at the Belgian Grand Prix, finishing in seventh place after starting from the pit lane due to a disastrous qualifying session on Saturday afternoon.

Oscar Piastri went on to win the race ahead of McLaren teammate Lando Norris, whilst Lewis Hamilton‘s Ferrari teammate, Charles Leclerc, took the final position on the podium.

Hamilton’s performance in the Belgian Grand Prix was a stark contrast to what we saw of him throughout the other sessions of the weekend.

Martin Brundle highlighted how ‘awful’ Hamilton looked during Saturday’s Sprint race. The rear end of his SF-25 looked extremely volatile as he tip-toed around the circuit to finish in 15th place in the Sprint.

Ferrari changed the Brit’s brake pads ahead of the Grand Prix, giving Hamilton more confidence under braking, which was clear to see, given some of the impressive moves by the seven-time world champion on track.

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Lewis Hamilton was charging through the field in the opening laps of the Belgian GP

The Brit started the race in 18th place as the cars took to the track under safety car conditions, with only Kimi Antonelli and Fernando Alonso behind him.

Hamilton dispatched Carlos Sainz’s Williams on the inside of the bus stop chicane at the end of lap seven, before swinging it around the outside of Franco Colapinto at the Les Combes chicane just six corners later on the following lap.

The next driver up was Nico Hulkenberg, and it took the Ferrari driver a single lap to get up to behind his gearbox and make a move that stuck in a carbon copy of his overtake on Sainz just laps earlier.

Hunting down the second Alpine of Pierre Gasly for the majority of the ninth lap, Hamilton decided to go for an unorthodox overtake at Stavelot to get the move done on the Frenchman. It was a daring move in such tricky conditions, and his race engineer Riccardo Adami quickly lauded the driver for his bravery.

It wasn’t all perfect from Adami at the Belgian GP, however. Hamilton was told to ‘lift and coast’ by his race engineer multiple times throughout the race, giving a different reason each time, which has become a sort of ‘classic’ move of the team, according to journalist Julianne Cerasoli.

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The radio exchange was a rare moment of efficiency between Lewis Hamilton and his Ferrari race engineer

On lap 11, whilst Hamilton was charging down the Kemmel straight and the tarmac in Ardennes forest was drying, his race engineer posed the possibility of switching to slick tyres at the end of the lap, to which Hamilton simply replied, “No way.”

As he got later through the lap, the seven-time world champion’s sentiment on the slick tyres changed, and he got on the radio to confirm, “I’m down to try if you want,” on his approach into turn 12, Les Fagnes.

The quick thinking helped Hamilton jump five cars in the pit lane and overtake Liam Lawson on the Kiwi’s approach out of the pits, bumping the Ferrari driver up to seventh place, where he would finish the race.

The exchange marked a positive back and forth from an exchange which usually holds tones of frustration from the driver’s side. Charles Leclerc’s exchange with his Ferrari race engineer at the start of the Belgian GP showed the frustrating side of the communication between driver and pit-wall that we are used to seeing from the Italian team.