The legendary old school circuit of Spa Francorchamps was the perfect venue to kick off the second half of the season. During the summer break Red Bull had promoted Alexander Albon to the energy drink team, whilst Pierre Gasly had been demoted back to Toro Rosso due to his inability to meet the expectations of Dr Helmut Marko and the team. Valtteri Bottas' contract with Mercedes was renewed just before coming into the Belgian GP weekend. Mercedes reserve driver Esteban Ocon, who was known to compete of the Mercedes seat with Bottas, was signed up by Renault.
Mechanics were still working on championship leader Hamilton's car, as the qualifying got underway. The Briton had crashed out in FP3 at Turn 12, which was very atypical place for an off. The first segment was quite interrupted. After five minutes of running came the first red flag; Kubica's Williams was hit with a sudden power unit failure, with lots of smoke and flames coming from the rear of the Pole's car. Red flags gave the Mercedes team some extra minutes to get Hamilton's W10 fixed for the qualifying. It was fantastic to see, how superior Ferrari's straight line speed was, compared to the Silver Arrows. Sebastian and Charles were six to seven tenths faster on the first sector alone! Charles was the faster one of the red-suited drivers. The session was red-flagged again with only less than a minute remaining; this time it was Alfa Romeo's Giovinazzi, who suffered a sudden power unit failure.
In the last two sessions Charles continued, where he had left off in Q1. He was absolutely determined to go for pole. After laying an early marker in Q3, the Monegasque managed to improve his lap time by a tenth on his last flyer. Sebastian, who had made a mistake on his first flyer, managed to improve as well, but in spite of the improvement, he was seven tenths down on his teammate! He had locked up his tyres, but it was so great to see the Scuderia cars lock out the front row! The Silver Arrows were left on the second row, Hamilton having the upper hand on his Finnish teammate. Verstappen qualified fifth, massive 1.1 seconds off the pace. The Renault duo of Ricciardo and Hulkenberg qualified sixth and seventh, but both of them had been handed a five-place grid penalty for power unit element changes. Their penalties promoted Kimi to P6!
The race day dawned pitch-black. Saturday's F2 race had seen a fatal crash, where 22-year-old French racing driver Anthoine Hubert had lost his life, and his rival Juan Manuel Correa taken to the hospital severely injured. Hubert was a close friend of Leclerc, so naturally Charles was devastated after the tragic accident. Charles was even more determined to win the race in memory of his friend.
Typical of Spa, the start was eventful. Pole setter Leclerc took a strong start and dived into Turn 1 first. Hamilton's start was brilliant, and he squeezed himself ahead of Sebastian, climbing up Eau Rouge. However, thanks to Ferrari's superior straight line speed, Sebastian managed to snatch his second place back on the long straight. Verstappen, on the other hand, had a lousy start, and the aggressive Dutchman desperately tried to compensate his lost positions by making a adventurous move into Turn 1. He dived into the inside of Kimi, where there was no room at all. Verstappen crashed into Kimi's Alfa Romeo, which caused Kimi's car to jump in the air and land on two wheels. Verstappen's front suspension was severely damaged, and the Dutchman's race ended into the tyre wall at Eau Rouge. Kimi's car got major damage to the floor, and the Iceman had to pit for a new nose cone. Safety car was deployed due to Verstappen's crash.
Sebastian pitted first of the top drivers on lap 15, switching to the medium rubber. In spite of his flying lap times, his rivals stayed out. Race leader Charles pitted not until on lap 20, for a similar tyre choice. Sebastian benefited from the undercut, and moved ahead of Charles in spite of the Monegasque's flawless pit stop. The Mercedes duo pitted on the sequential laps, and their order remained unchanged (Hamilton third and Bottas fourth). A bit surprisingly, Charles was significantly faster than Sebastian, although the teammates were on the same rubber. Charles caught up his teammate rapidly.
The tables have turned at Ferrari, as Sebastian was given a team order on lap 26; the team told him to let Charles past. In no time Charles was back in the lead. Sebastian was in trouble with his out-worn mediums, and Hamilton was approaching him frighteningly fast. Only a few laps later the Briton was right at Sebastian's tail. Thanks to Lina's superb straight line speed, Sebastian was able to defend his position for a few laps, but on lap 32 Hamilton squeezed himself extremely close to his rival, and managed to get past, thanks to the DRS. Immediately, there was also another threat lurking from behind -Valtteri Bottas. However, Sebastian had no chance but to pit for a new set of soft tyres. The race lead had turned into disappointing P4!
On the closing laps it was race leader Charles, whose tyres were dying. Hamilton had smelled his young rival's blood, and decreased the gap to him tenth by tenth. On the second last lap the gap was only 1.5 seconds! The penultimate lap was extremely dramatic. McLaren's Norris, who had been driving a superb race in P5, suffered a sudden loss of power, with his orange McLaren coming to a halt. It was such a shame, that valuable P5 turned into P11 and no points. The other driver to face drama was Alfa Romeo's Giovinazzi. He, too was on his way to a points finish, but ended up crashing out due to a mistake of his own! Thanks to the yellow flags, Hamilton had no chance to try an overtaking move on Charles on the very last lap. Charles crossed the finish line as the race winner for the first time in his career! The emotional Monegasque owed his victory to his late friend Anthoine. Hamilton finished the runner-up, with teammate Bottas completing the podium. Unfortunately Sebastian had to settle for P4. Red Bull debutant Albon, who had started to the race from the back of the pack due to a grid penalty, achieved impressive fifth place.
Now the F1 circus moves to the "Temple of Speed", which is known as Ferrari's territory. Does the Red Team have a new number one driver? Sebastian definitely needs to understand, why he was so severely off his teammate's pace on the same tyre compound. Charles is living quite a momentum now! Forza Ferrari!
With passion for racing red,
Iina Huhmarniemi
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