Lewis Hamilton clarifies eye-catching Ferrari claim with 'ballistic' Kimi Antonelli argument

Lewis Hamilton has explained his claim that Ferrari could have won the Belgian Grand Prix, pointing to Kimi Antonelli not being as "ballistic" as usual. 

Ferrari did not expect to be challengers at Spa, owing to the long straights and high top speeds not suiting its package, but in the hands of Charles Leclerc, the SF-26 was able to finish in second, and within two seconds of Antonelli after being passed for the lead with 10 laps remaining. 

As for Hamilton, his challenge was effectively ended on the first lap after sustaining severe damage in the collision with George Russell - with the left-hand side bargeboard being destroyed - and also picking up a five-second time penalty for the incident.

Although it was served under the VSC at his pit-stop, Hamilton still lost a further five seconds, and came out behind Max Verstappen and Oscar Piastri, ultimately passing Piastri, and finishing 5.7s behind Verstappen for a podium. 

Offering an explanation as to why he felt the car was capable of winning in Belgium, Hamilton pointed to Mercedes' Antonelli not being as "ballistic" as usual as he roared to a sixth grand prix win from 10 races to further cement himself as the championship leader, with the advantage over Hamilton now being 45 points.

"I mean, every weekend the goal is to try and extract the most from the weekend, and I would say we had a couple of really good weekends, and we got to Silverstone and started out strong and took one step in the wrong direction," Hamilton told media, including RacingNews365. 

"It took us away from competing for a win, and then the same thing last week, so that just shows how it can sometimes go in a sport. 

"But I'm still grateful that we've had the consistency and still scored points, but when I meant that we could have, I think on pure pace, Kimi is so fast he pulls away, but he wasn't like ballistic, and we were a lot closer than we had thought. 

"So to go to two circuits that we thought we'd be quite far behind and be as close as we were, have Charles win the [British] Grand Prix, and second [in Belgium], I think is a really good result, and shows that we are moving in the right direction."