Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsMercedes

Tyres still a concern - Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton says he still retains some concerns over Pirelli's tyres ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix.

Hamilton's Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg suffered a dramatic high-speed tyre failure during practice on Friday, with Pirelli's investigations concluding the issue was not a structural one. While the "external source" which is believed to have caused the failure remains unknown, Hamilton says it adds another question mark regarding the tyres having saved a set of softs for the race.

“I think this race always provides an interesting outcome," Hamilton said. "It’s always been difficult weather and obviously tyre strategy. Tyres are obviously an unknown from the degradation point of view but also obviously seeing Nico’s issue [on Friday], who knows what’s going to happen in the race. So I just hope that it’s a strong, positive day.”

Pole-sitter Hamilton also acknowledges the importance of retaining his lead in the opening laps, with his strongest sector in qualifying being the middle sector where it is difficult to overtake.

“Sector two has been I would say probably in the past a bit of a weak point, I know all the lines but could never really put all the corners together. Definitely on those two laps [in qualifying] that was a very, very strong area for me.”

Click here for Saturday's Belgian Grand Prix gallery at Spa-Francorchamps

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.