Hamilton: Mercedes and McLaren are Belgian Grand Prix Favorites

Pulse Sports Team 09:34 - 18 July 2026

Lewis Hamilton has tipped Mercedes and McLaren to impress at the Belgian Grand Prix, following Ferrari's noticeable struggles during Friday's practice sessions at Spa.

Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli topped the timesheets yesterday with a 1:45.944, outpacing McLaren's Lando Norris by two-tenths and Red Bull's Max Verstappen by half a second. Hamilton, driving the leading Ferrari, was 0.747 seconds off the pace, and the seven-time world champion was clearly impressed by his two former teams.

"Mercedes is always the team to beat, that's been the case all year. On a track with such long straights like this, you expect exactly that. I think they'll be very strong.""McLaren looks good. It seems McLaren is really strong in the fast corners, both medium and high-speed," Hamilton observed."I think in the first free practice, we looked stronger than we expected, but then in the second session, everyone made progress and took another step forward. So that was probably a more realistic picture. Overall, the feeling in the car is good, but we're lacking a bit of speed in the middle sector, so we're trying to understand why," the seven-time champion added.Asked if he felt any specific limitation for the car in that sector, the Briton replied: "It feels like it's related to downforce; the balance overall is good. We'd like more downforce if we could, but then we also need straight-line speed. We'll do a thorough analysis tonight to understand how we can improve our performance in the middle sector without losing top speed."

Despite Hamilton's comments, Ferrari team principal Fred Vasseur was quick to caution against drawing premature conclusions from the practice sessions.

"If you look at the last three or four Friday sessions, they are not always indicative of qualifying. I think we are all using different engine modes, different fuel levels, and so on. Let's see tomorrow afternoon," the Frenchman pointed out.