This archive report was first published on 31 August 2019.
On August 31, 2019, Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes car suffered a heavy crash in practice at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Hamilton lost control at the Fagnes chicane and hit the barriers head-on, badly damaging the front of his car.
A Mercedes spokesperson stated, "We will be replacing both front corners (suspension and wheel assemblies), nose, barge boards and floor."
"Barring nasty surprises, we can complete all of the work in time," the spokesperson added.
Hamilton's incident occurred mid-way through the session as he was trying to improve a lap time that was 0.35 seconds down on team-mate Valtteri Bottas.
Charles Leclerc led Sebastian Vettel to a Ferrari one-two in the session, 0.497secs ahead of Bottas.
Meanwhile, Daniel Ricciardo's Renault was a surprise fourth fastest, just 0.271secs slower than Bottas and ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen.
Mercedes are optimistic that they can repair Hamilton's car in time for qualifying at 14:00 BST, and initial inspections suggest that the gearbox is undamaged.
