A performance worthy of a champion! Verstappen clearly dominated the Belgian VC. Ferrari made another big mistake, Hamilton crashed

On Sunday 28th August, Formula 1 had the 14th race of the season, the Belgian Grand Prix. Lewis Hamilton failed to finish the race, having clashed with Fernando Alonso on the first lap. Max Verstappen won at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, and thanks to second-placed Pérez, Red Bull celebrates another double!

Sainz, Pérez, Alonso, Hamilton, Russell, Albon, Ricciardo, Gasly, Stroll, Vettel – that’s how the top ten order looked at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix. It should be added, the starting grid was significantly affected by the number of penalties for 6 drivers, obviously due to the replacement of components on the power units.

Valtteri Bottas started from position thirteenth, Max Verstappen from fourteenth, followed by Charles Leclerc, Esteban Ocon, Lando Norris, Kuan-yu Zhou and Mick Schumacher. Alpha Tauri’s Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda started from the pits for the same reason.

Chaos at the start of the Belgian GP

The start of the Belgian Grand Prix, however, did not go well for Sergio Pérez, who dropped down the order immediately after all five lights went out, specifically to fifth place. However, the opening lap of the thirteenth race of the season brought mutual contact between Hamilton and Alonso, after which the seven-time champion did not continue in the race.

Yellow flags were waved and the race directors called out the safety car. The car returned to the pits at the end of the fourth lap and racing resumed from the fifth circuit.

However, the race marshals then ruled the duel a racing incident and did not hand out any penalties to either driver, even though it was Hamilton who had left Les Combes with virtually no room for Alonso on the inside of the corner.

Chaos in the opening laps then, of course, shuffled the order. For on the second lap, through his own fault, Nicholas Latifi in the Williams went off the track, failed to control his monopost, spun and hit Bottas in the Alfa Romeo on his return to the track.

The Finnish driver ended up in a duck and couldn’t get out of it. So the Belgian Grand Prix was over early for him.

Restart

After the restart, Verstappen in the Red Bull picked up incredible pace and, after starting from 14th position, took the Belgian Grand Prix lead on lap 12. This was also due to some great tyre work.

In fact, the reigning world champion lasted the longest on this specification of the four drivers wearing the red set of tyres. With the exception of Cunoda, all the drivers then started on the yellow, medium compound.

Verstappen, Perez, Russell, Vettel, Sainz, Ricciardo, Stroll, Ocon, Leclerc, Norris – this is how the top 10 rankings looked after twelve laps of the Belgian Grand Prix.

The standings were then shuffled by the pit stops. Leader Verstappen stopped at his mechanics on lap 16, whereupon he dropped to second place behind Sainz, who was four laps ahead of him. However, Verstappen took the lead back on lap 18.

Three laps later, a key moment in the Belgian VC occurred when Pérez, in third, passed Sainz in the Ferrari. At this point, both Red Bull cars were in the top two places. As a result of all the aforementioned events, the drivers who changed components on the power unit at Spa found it easier to get into the positions traditionally theirs.

Leclerc gradually worked his way into the elite five, Verstappen was even in the lead, and Ocon also made it into the top ten in points. Only Norris will not remember this year’s race in Belgium in a good light, as both McLaren cars were losing pace significantly.

There was nothing particularly dramatic on track apart from the pit stops. However, on lap 35, the fans were treated to a beautiful battle between Gasly, Vettel and Ocon. Ocon was the winner of this battle, Gasly first overtook Vettel on the straight together with the Alpine driver, but the Formula 1 legend hit back at the next corner.

The order after 37 laps of the Belgian GP was as follows: Verstappen, Pérez, Sainz, Russell, Leclerc, Alonso, Ocon, Vettel, Gasly, Albon.

Another unnecessary mistake by Ferrari

At that point, there were still 8 laps to go in the 13th race of the season, and everything looked like the top 10 would cross the finish line in the same order. But at the start of lap 43, Ferrari called Leclerc to the pits for a change to the softest red set of tyres.

The Italian team wanted to try and capture the fastest lap of the race, for which Leclerc would then receive an extra championship point. However, Ferrari failed to keep a gap on sixth-placed Alonso, who passed Leclerc on that 43rd lap.

The Ferrari driver did get back ahead of the Spanish legend on the final 44th lap, but fell back to sixth place as a result of a five-second penalty. He was fined by the race directors for speeding in the pit lane during that last pit stop.

Source: F1 TV