Lewis Hamilton criticises delayed start to Belgian GP – but team bosses side with FIA
After an 80-minute delay due to a heavy downpour, the race restarted with four laps behind the safety car, despite the track drying rapidly in most areas.
The 44-lap grand prix begun with a rolling start, rather than the usual standing start and seven-time world champion Hamilton believed race control compensated for the last race at Silverstone, where a crash occurred due to lack of visibility in the rain.
'We started the race a little bit too late, I would say,' said Hamilton, who started in the pit-lane and finished seventh to conclude a wretched weekend.
'I kept shouting 'it's ready to go, it's ready to go'. They kept going round and round. So, I think they're probably overreacting from the last race, where we asked them not to restart the race too early, because the visibility was bad.
'I think this weekend they just went a bit too much the other way, because we didn't need a rolling start.'
'My car was set up for that [rain], they waited for it to dry pretty much. They definitely could have done a standing start, especially at the end there, because it was almost a dry line. There was hardly any spray.'
Max Verstappen agreed with Hamilton, calling the delay 'silly' over team radio. However, Hamilton's boss at Ferrari, team principal Fred Vasseur, thought race director Rui Marques was correct to err on the side of caution, particularly given past crashes in the rain at Spa.
'The spray is coming from the floor, there is nothing we can do,' he said.
'The limitation is not the grip, the limitation is visibility. The helmet camera shows it, you can understand in this situation that they see absolutely nothing.
'Remember what happened in Silverstone with the crash, this is the most dangerous. We can't blame them, we would be the first one to give them s*** if something happened.
'I was comfortable in respecting their decision because they have a huge responsibility.'
McLaren team principal Andrea Stella, whose drivers Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris led home another one-two finish for the runaway leaders, also concurred with the FIA's decision-making.
'I think today the race was managed in a very wise way by the FIA,' he said.
'We knew there was a lot of rain coming. Delaying the race allowed us to race in wet conditions and we went into dry. We didn't even know how long the dry race would've been.
'I think from our position we always praise the work of the FIA when this is deserved and this is one of the cases.'
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