Lewis Hamilton braced for brutal Belgian Grand Prix as Ferrari follow Aston Martin approach

Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton and his Ferrari F1 team have opted to take the Aston Martin approach to upgrades at this weekend's Belgian Grand Prix.

The 10th round of the championship heads to Spa-Francorchamps with the Scuderia having placed themselves firmly in the title fight behind Mercedes in both the drivers' and constructors' standings.

Fred Vasseur's squad have benefitted from taking an aggressive approach to upgrades so far this season, with Hamilton and his team-mate Charles Leclerc taking a grand prix win apiece.

The rate at which the Scuderia were bringing upgrades even attracted Toto Wolff's attention, with the Mercedes team principal suggesting Ferrari might 'run out' of cost cap spending soon if they kept up their rapid upgrade rate.

This sparked a heated debate between Wolff and fellow F1 boss Vasseur, who took his comments as a sign that the Austrian was suggesting the Italian squad were cheating.

Though the duo appear to have smoothed things over, it is possible Wolff's words got to Vasseur as Ferrari and Aston Martin are the only two teams not to bring any upgrades at all to Belgium this time out.

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Ferrari dial back aggressive F1 upgrades approach at Spa

The 2026 race weekend in the Ardennes Forest will see lots of changes come into play.

McLaren are bringing a new rear wing and trialling it during Friday practice whilst Red Bull have abandoned their troublesome 'macarena' wing which is believed to have played a role in both of Verstappen's recent session-ending crashes in Austria and Silverstone.

But whilst all seven other teams have also brought upgrades to Spa, Ferrari and Aston Martin have not.

Hamilton even admitted prior to taking to the track in Belgium on Friday that neither he nor his team knew what to expect from the weekend, pointing to a tricky grand prix on Sunday.

"On this track, it's very difficult. This track is lots and lots of straights. We went to Silverstone and we thought that it was going to be much further down, the power, and it was quick through the corners, so it was far better than we anticipated," began the 41-year-old.

"So, we come here again not really knowing what to expect, except for the track that is like 50 per cent more straights. I think there still was a gap of maybe three or four tenths in the last race, so here we probably anticipate it will be a little bit more. But we're doing everything we can."

Hamilton's Ferrari team then also made a huge error on Friday following the two practice sessions, when they did not hand the right amount of tyres back to Pirelli ahead of FP2.

Ferrari were handed two €5,000 fines for an offence on both Hamilton and Leclerc's cars, but they did avoid a grid drop.

When are Aston Martin bringing F1 upgrades?

The fact Adrian Newey's squad aren't bringing any upgrades to the race weekend in Spa is not surprising given they have opted to gamble by putting all their eggs in the design genius' basket where their upgrades timeline is concerned.

Confirming when the struggling Silverstone outfit can expect upgrades, Newey said ahead of the British GP last time out: "We took the decision after Melbourne that there was no point in introducing small changes that would still leave us with no chance of scoring points," he said on the Silverstone grid.

"So we take a bit of pressure off ourselves, regroup, put systems in place for the future and work on a proper upgrade which we hope for Hungary. There will be a bit more coming in Zandvoort, combined with Honda introducing an upgrade, which will be for Zandvoort.

"So at that point I'm hoping we'll be at least in a points-scoring position. I'm not saying top 10, but if we can at least get into Q2 then we can see from there."

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Written by

Kerry Violet - F1 News Editor

Having graduated from the University of Sheffield with a 2:1 in Journalism in 2022, Kerry continued her pursuit of finding a full-time position in motorsport through work with the F1 Arcade in London, where she got to meet true fans of the sport and make a live grand prix watch party memorable for them. It was here that she confirmed her dream of combining her background in journalism and love of motorsport, going on to volunteer with the female-led platform Empoword Journalism. Having completed stints as a screen editor and sports editor, Kerry landed her first F1-specific editorial role with GPFans and has thoroughly enjoyed continuing to work closely with the sport ever since. The access GPFans offers Kerry has allowed her to interview big names such as Naomi Schiff and David Coulthard and given her experiences she could only have dreamt of as a young F1 fan.

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