The teams and drivers were in Belgium this weekend at the blisteringly fast undulating Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps for the FORMULA 1 ROLEX BELGIAN GRAND PRIX 2020. It was a race dominated by the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton, who won from pole position after leading every lap of the race.
This was a race that was originally uncertain, with mass gatherings forbidden by the Belgian government until the end of the month, as an attempt to protect against the spread of the COVID-19 virus.
It was a somewhat sombre event as the motorsport community remembers the young Anthoine Hubert, the French F1 hopeful who was killed during last year’s Formula 2 race at this circuit.
Carlos Sainz did not start the race, thanks to an exhaust failure on his way to the grid. He would have started from P7 on the grid.
It was Valtteri Bottas that got away well off the line from P2 on the grid. He was nearly alongside pole sitter Lewis Hamilton into the first corner, but the run to turn one just wasn’t long enough. He had to settle in behind his teammate.
Daniel Ricciardo, on the soft tyres than the top three who were on the medium tyres, was a driver to look for on the first lap. He put pressure on Max Verstappen in the bus stop chicane for P3, but had to run wide to avoid getting hit by Verstappen on the outside of turn 8. He was able to make up time when Verstappen ran on the kerbs on the outside of turn 9, but the intense battle allowed the Mercedes duo to break away from the rest of the pack on the first lap.
By the time the DRS was enabled, the top drivers were all separated by more than a second. But there was plenty of entertainment from the cars throughout the field like Pierre Gasly who made a few brave moves, including a great Mark Webber style move up Raidillon.
The safety car was deployed on lap 11 to clean up the stricken cars of Antonio Giovinazzi and George Russell. Giovinazzi lost the rear of the car in turn 14 and spun into the barriers. A tyre broke away from his car and struck Russell’s front suspension, taking him out of the race.
The safety car triggered some pit stops, the first of which was Charles Leclerc. But the Ferrari team was not ready for him and his pit stop cost him 10 seconds as the mechanics rushed to get the tyres from the garage.
The majority of the field pitted the following lap still under the safety car. Verstappen came out of his pit box just barely behind Bottas. While the rest of the field opted to pit for the hard tyres, Alexander Albon pitted for the medium tyres.
Pierre Gasly didn’t pit for tyres, having started on the hard tyres which would require him to change to a medium or soft tyre, which may not have made it to the end of the race. Sergio Perez also decided to stay out on his soft tyres.
When the race restarted on lap 14, Hamilton pulled away quickly in a straight forward restart. A few laps after the restart, he complained about a loss of power over the team radio, but the team informed him that it was just the energy management system recharging the battery.
The two Ferrari teammates were battle wheel-to-wheel on lap 19, potentially raising the blood pressure of their team on the pit wall. The duo nearly collided with each other as they both threw their cars through the bus stop chicane.
On lap 25, Leclerc was called into the pit lane again for a set of medium tyres, but it likely wasn’t a call because of the tyres. The appeared to be topping up the pneumatic pressure by connecting a pressure hose to the car’s sidepod during the stop. This led to another slower pit stop for Leclerc, which he was angry over on the team radio, but also indicted some form of mechanical issue.
Late in the race, Pierre Gasly was slicing his way through the field after pitting for a new set of medium tyres under the green flag. He flew past Sebastian Vettel in the bus stop chicane after the Ferrari locked up. He made a similar move in his AlphaTauri the following lap on Kimi Raikkonen. He made it into the points after a swap with his teammate in the run up to the final chicane. He was showing that not pitting under the safety car was a good strategy for him.
In the closing stages of the race, the leaders began to show their lack of grip on their hard tyres. Both Mercedes locked up in the final chicane and had to cut it on different laps. But Hamilton was 6 seconds ahead of Bottas and Verstappen was 6 seconds behind Bottas, withering hopes of an excitingly close finish with five laps remaining in the race.
Ricciardo showed some strong pace at the end of race, setting personal best lap times and lapping well over a second faster than the cars in front. But he was way too far behind to have any chance to catching up to the cars in front, although he did close the gap dramatically. That didn’t stop him from stealing the fastest lap point from Hamilton on the final lap and finishing just 3 seconds behind Verstappen.
But it was Gasly who was the driver of the day, taking a further two positions from Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll in the last few laps, collecting 4 points for his P8 finish.
It was another Mercedes 1-2 finish with Verstappen joining them on the bottom step of the podium. Hamilton increased his World Drivers’ Championship title lead to 47 points.
The drivers will be heading to Italy for the first of two weekends. The first will be for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza on the weekend of September 6. Next, the teams and drivers will be heading about 300km South to be Autodromo Internazionale del Mugello, which will host a race in Formula One for the first time in its history.
Above results table does not include any post-race penalties
