Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Spa-Francorchamps, 2021

Hamilton suspects mudslides caused “massive” new bump at Eau Rouge

2021 Belgian Grand Prix

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Lewis Hamilton suspects the recent heavy rain and flooding at Spa-Francorchamps have formed a new bump in the high-speed Eau Rouge sequence.

The Mercedes driver said he noticed a much more severe bump at the lowest point in the corner before the climb up through Raidillon.

“It’s very bumpy now through Eau Rouge,” said Hamilton after Friday’s practice at the circuit. “Something’s happened and they’ve kind of ruined it a little bit.

“I don’t know if they got a new patch there, but there’s a massive bump right at the compression point, which we’ve never had there before. It’s really sharp, you feel it on the backside.

“But I’m sure they’ll fix it. I think it’s something to do the mudslides, the rain or something like that.”

Mercedes experimented with different downforce levels on their cars during today’s practice. Hamilton languished in 18th place in the morning session, but ended the afternoon within a tenth of a second of pace-setter Max Verstappen.

“It’s a massively challenging circuit,” he said. “Trying to find that balance this morning we had it one way, we changed it this afternoon. It’s very similar: You go faster in the first and third sector but you go slower in the middle or you go quicker in the middle and slower in the other two. So trying to find that balance is quite tricky.”

Hamilton said he was grateful for an opportunity for some dry running in a weekend which is forecast to get progressively wetter.

“It’s been an okay day. The sessions are very short, so there’s not a lot of knowledge you’re gaining from the short time that you have. We’re trying to navigate the best way we can.

“At least it was dry for [second practice] so we’ve got some laps in. But the car wasn’t underneath me today so I’ve got to do some work tonight and try and figure that out.”

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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10 comments on “Hamilton suspects mudslides caused “massive” new bump at Eau Rouge”

  1. That’s Raidillon actually. Eau Rouge-Raidillon, but anyway.

  2. That’s Raidillon actually

    It’s not though

  3. I imagine they can scan the track and show how it has changed year by year. Drivers seem to be on those changes though. It sure impresses me.

  4. I guess you noticed a huge crash today exactly in the point where Hamilton mentioned that theres a bump…

  5. erikje, as others have noted, considering that there was a major accident in the W Series earlier today, where the suggestion is that bump in the track could have been a contributing factor, your comment comes across as pretty tasteless and callous.

  6. The comments count is indicated as 7 but I can only see 3 of them. Is this just for me or there’s a problem?

    1. I would guess a post was removed by moderators, and therefore the replies to that post would also disappear.

    2. @sebsronnie a thread was removed for moderation but the count still shows.

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