Source: REUTERS/Andrew Boyers
[Saba Sports News] With the start of the Belgian Grand Prix, Ferrari’s highly anticipated rear suspension upgrade made its debut at Spa. But just before the race weekend, Lewis Hamilton’s comment brought the upgrade back down to earth. Earlier, Ferrari conducted a 200-kilometer “photo day” at Mugello, where Hamilton and Charles Leclerc took turns driving the upgraded SF-25 car, originally intended to test whether the new suspension could solve the car’s longstanding issues with height and stability. However, there was no difference in the simulator, and after less than 15 laps on the track, Hamilton admitted, “We didn’t do any real testing. It felt exactly like the last race.” According to internal feedback, the new suspension could bring a maximum of 0.1 seconds per lap — a small advantage that could easily be erased by the elevation changes, rain, and sprint race format in Spa. Worse yet, the practice time on the sprint weekend was only one hour. Hamilton admitted that optimizing the new system in such a short time was basically impossible.