Hamilton: “We could have finished with a double”

Lewis Hamilton is somewhere between incredulous and desperate after his retirement from Belgian GP 2014. The Mercedes driver, who started in second position behind Rosberg, had managed to take the lead shortly after the start, but his teammate, in an attempt to regain the lead, touched the left rear of the Briton with the front wing of his Mercedes. Flat tire, return to the pits and an uphill race for all the next 42 laps Hamilton, who had to throw in the towel and retire a few laps from the end.

“I don't know exactly what happened, I just know that I felt a strong blow on my back,” he explained Hamilton. “I gave him space, I don't really understand. It's really demoralizing how it ended, I'm sorry for the result and for my team who worked hard all weekend. The support from the crowd here at Spa was fantastic and it was a shame we couldn't give them a result today. I can't believe it, what can I say... You saw that I did everything. We've had a tough year, not just the guys next to me in the garage, but the whole team in general. What happened was not good, we could have easily taken home a one-two,” continued the driver Mercedes.

Despite the team's radio insistence to return and thus preserve the engine for the rest of the season, Hamilton he tried everything until four laps from the end, when he then gave in faced with the real impossibility of scoring points. “I had lost at least 40-50 points of power,” he insisted Hamilton. “I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even get the Lotus of Grosjean. And if the safety car had come out it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. I already burned an engine in the last race and I have one less than Nico."

“Maybe this isn't my year but there are still seven races between now and the end and we have a great car, a great team, who knows, maybe luck will start to turn on my side too. Now Nico is 29 points ahead, all I can do is move on from this episode, concentrate my strength and attack in the next races,” concluded the Briton.

Nina Stefanelli