Kimi Antonelli reversed the momentum of the previous two races to win comfortably at Spa and extend his championship lead to 45 points over Lewis Hamilton and to 50 points over teammate and main title rival George Russell, who did not manage to make it past the first lap of the race.
Spa-Francorchamps is one of the circuits on the calendar with a special place in the hearts of many Formula 1 fans, having delivered many historic moments of high drama through the years. One of the reasons for drama is often the unpredictable weather in the Ardennes, with rain a constant threat. There was talk before the start of the race of some precipitation interrupting the first few laps, which put team strategists on edge, however this time it was not the skies that produced the drama, but the drivers themselves on the first lap.
George Russell had spoken earlier this weekend about the mystery surrounding the deployment issues his side of the Mercedes garage have been suffering with. The team have been unable to explain why it is that the British driver has been down on straight line speed in comparison to his young colleague in the latter part of the straights. At a track like Spa with its long straights, these problems were exacerbated.
This proved to be the case as on the first lap, during the charge towards the end of the Kemmel Straight and into turn 5, Russell found himself swamped from all sides by the two Ferraris as he trailed the Red Bull of Max Verstappen. He tried to hold position around the outside of Hamilton, but on his inside his former teammate understeered and caught the sidepod of the Mercedes, spinning it round and dumping it into the gravel trap, ending Russell's race before it had even begun. For his part in the incident, Hamilton was given a 5 second penalty as well as suffering bodywork damage which impacted the rest of his race.
Toto Wolff commented afterwards, "George had a difficult weekend. For us it was half our performance on the engine side, but also there is part his side with the driving. That was a racing incident (with Hamilton). He has our complete support. I am going to put my arm around him."
The Safety Car was called upon while the marshals cleared the beached Mercedes away. At a track where there's been an 80% chance of a Safety Car over previous years you would expect that every team would have a plan in place for the early interruption. However, it was Red Bull that seemed to steal a march on the other teams as they pitted Hadjar (who had started on the Hards) onto the Mediums and then back onto the Hards all whilst the Safety Car was still out. The plan was then to go to the end of the race on that set of tyres and climb through the field. Hadjar managed the race perfectly and even had time for another pit stop later on to give him the opportunity to hold off a fast-finishing Lando Norris for sixth place.
Once the race restarted, the race settled into a calmer period with Antonelli extending his lead at the front by a tenth or two per lap from Verstappen, all while the two Ferraris and Piastri kept each other busy. Following them the Racing Bulls had a strong weekend as they were clearly the best of the rest in terms of race pace. They will be hopeful of more good results going forward and rookie Arvid Lindblad continues to impress only 10 races into his fledgling F1 career. With the gossip continuing at the front around the destination of Max Verstappen for next season, Lindblad is doing his future prospects no harm at all.
Back at the front of the race, Verstappen was the first to stop and attempt the undercut on Antonelli, however, he was able to pit the following lap and come out retaining the net lead with some margin. The 'net' lead was due to the fact that Leclerc still had to make a pit stop. But then Ferrari were given a leg up by circumstance. A Virtual Safety Car meant that both Leclerc and Hamilton were able to complete a stop without losing as much race time as their competitors. Hamilton had a tough pit stop though, bumping into one of his mechanics as he attempted to leave the pit box. Lewis reflected afterwards, "The team did a great job on strategy. I think without the damage, we could've been challenging for the win. This weekend we have been a bit unfortunate. We have more stuff coming in the pipeline and I'll step it up in terms of focus level for next week in Hungary."
After the pit stops of all the front runners, Leclerc emerged in front and for ten laps held the gap to Antonelli behind him. With metronomic accuracy, the lead was brought down by a tenth or two per lap by the championship leader. As we all know in Formula 1, catching is one thing and passing is quite another. The modern version often means the lead will change from lap to lap as deployment strategy plays out before our eyes.
Antonelli has figured out the new rules better than most and made the move decisively and only once. There was the also outlier of Norris still going round on the tyres he started the race on, and the general feeling was that McLaren missed a trick by not pitting him during the VSC as well. They were perhaps waiting for a full Safety Car, but spent too long going on the worn rubber and finally Norris had to stop to put on the Medium tyre on lap 31. Antonelli retook the lead on lap 34 and never looked back. Afterwards in Parc Ferme his demeanour and energy showed that he really believes he had taken a huge stride towards winning the world championship in only his second season at the top table of motorsport.
Next up, is Hungary before the summer break. A track where Lewis Hamilton has a tremendous record, a track where slow speed corner performance will have a huge impact and a track that Ferrari are due to have an engine upgrade. Will we see a return to the front for the Scuderia such as was seen in Barcelona? Certainly George Russell will hope to enter the break on a higher note - another Kimi Antonelli win could see this season's championship all but won and by the youngest champion in Formula 1 history.
