- Lewis Hamilton crashed out early at F1's Belgian Grand Prix when he collided with Fernando Alonso.
- Hamilton was then seen taking a lonely and sad walk back to the garage.
The progress Lewis Hamilton and Mercedes made in narrowing the gap with Red Bull before the summer break seemingly disappeared during an ugly day at the Belgian Grand Prix.
While teammate George Russell finished a respectable fourth at Spa, both cars were well off the pace of Red Bull all weekend, and Hamilton crashed out early following a collision with Fernando Alonso.
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Hamilton accepted responsibility for the crash, saying he did not see Alonso in his blind spot. However, things got snippy when the broadcast caught Alonso's comments about the incident over the radio.
"What an idiot!" Alonso said. "Closing the door from the outside. I mean, we had a mega start, but this guy only knows how to drive and start in first."
Hamilton blew off the comments.
"I don't really have a response to it," Hamilton said. "I know that is how things feel in the heat of the moment, but it's nice to know how he feels about me. It's better that it's out in the open how he feels. And like I said, it wasn't intentional. And I take responsibility for it. That's what adults do."
Hamilton was then asked if he would speak with Alonso.
"No, no, I mean, I would have until I heard what he said," the seven-time champion said.
Mercedes lost ground during the summer break
After a rocky start to the season that saw Mercedes struggling with "porpoising," things were looking up. In the final eight races heading into the summer break, Mercedes recorded nine podiums, five more than Ferrari and just two behind Red Bull.
While Mercedes was yet to convert the success into any wins, there was promise that they were close.
But then came the Belgian Grand Prix, and it was seemingly Red Bull and championship leader Max Verstappen who had made the most improvements.
In the three free practice sessions, Russell and Hamilton were consistently 1-2 seconds behind Verstappen and his teammate, Sergio Perez.
Things got worse in qualifying as Hamilton finished seventh, 1.8 seconds off of Verstappen's pace, and Russell was P8, more than 2.1 seconds behind. According to Mark Hughes of Formula1.com, Mercedes' deficit in qualifying was their largest of the season, one race after Russell had taken the pole in Hungary.
Russell sounded flabbergasted and suggested that Mercedes struggles in the cold more than other teams.
"It's difficult to comprehend how we were on pole in the last race but 1.8 seconds off today," Russell said after qualifying. "And we aren't just losing time to Max; we were six-tenths behind the Alpines. When the temperatures are cold, we struggle, and as we also saw in Imola this year, we find it difficult to get the tires working."
As for Red Bull, team principal Christian Horner noted that the technical directive given by F1 officials to reduce porpoising might be hurting other teams rather than narrowing the gap, as some had predicted.
"A lot was made, and a lot of expectation was put on that [technical directive], so perhaps it's hurt others more than it's hurt ourselves," Horner said. "We haven't really changed the way we operate the car."
The latest chapter in Hamilton's ugly season was given the perfect visual
After qualifying, Hamilton expressed his frustration with the season.
"We came here very, very optimistic that we would be able to be close — half a second, who knows," Hamilton said. "To be 1.8 seconds behind, it's a real kick in the teeth, but it is what it is.... It's a car we continue to struggle with, and I definitely won't miss it at the end of the year."
After Hamilton was forced to stop on the track at the Belgian Grand Prix and retire his car, F1's cameras caught Hamilton walking alone down a dirt path back to the garage.
It felt like the perfect visual for how his season has gone so far.
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