F1 2020: Lewis Hamilton wins Belgium Grand Prix

Mercedes Lewis Hamilton swept to his fourth victory at the Belgium Grand Prix, leading home his teammate Valtteri Bottas as Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took third to maintain his record of finishing on the podium at every race he’s been classified in this year.

Following his dominant pole on Saturday, Hamilton resisted the first lap slipstreaming contest down to Les Combes to hold onto the lead, before retaining it for all 44 laps to close out his fifth victory out of seven races this year. Bottas came home around eight seconds behind his teammate, with Verstappen a further seven seconds down the road.

Renault’s Daniel Ricciardo led home the team’s best finish of the year in fourth, crossing the line under four seconds behind Verstappen after some rapid final laps, with Esteban Ocon overtaking the Red Bull of Alex Albon on the final tour to take fifth, Albon just holding onto sixth from the McLaren of Lando Norris.

An impressive drive from Pierre Gasly saw him take eighth for AlphaTauri, while the final points were taken by the Racing Point pair of Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez in P9 and P10 – with the Ferrari drivers Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc finishing out of the points in P13 and P14 respectively. Meanwhile, Hamilton’s fourth Belgian Grand Prix win sees him draw equal with Jim Clark and Kimi Raikkonen on third in the all-time list for Spa victories, behind Michael Schumacher and Ayrton Senna.

F1 2019: Charles Leclerc wins Belgian Grand Prix

Charles Leclerc claimed the first Formula 1 Victory of his career and Ferrari’s first in the 2019 campaign in the Belgium Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, less than 24 hours after his friend Anthoine Hubert passed away after a crash in F2 feature race.

The Monegasque, who immediately dedicated his win to Hubert, who he grew up racing, was in a league of his own all weekend, topping two of the three practice sessions and all three segments of qualifying on his way to his third pole position. Come race day, Leclerc led away from P1 and though he lost track position to team mate Sebastian Vettel during the pit stops, Ferrari instructed Vettel to move aside for the flying polesitter. From there Leclerc led reasonably comfortably, though he had to coolly hold off a late attack from Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton to clinch victory.

It was Ferrari’s first victory since Kimi Raikkonen triumphed in last year’s United States Grand Prix, with Leclerc the Scuderia’s 39th winner and Monaco the 23rd nation to win an F1 race. The 21-year-old also became the third-youngest winner in F1 history. Hamilton hunted down and passed Vettel, who was struggling with tyres after pitting early, to move into second and extend his championship lead, with teammate Valtteri Bottas completing the podium.

Vettel was forced to pit for a second time to take the soft tyres, which gave him the opportunity to take the fastest lap and a bonus point, but he could finish no better than fourth. McLaren’s Lando Norris was set to finish in fifth place, in what would have been the best result of his rookie season so far, but he retired on the final lap with suspected engine failure. That position was inherited by Red Bull’s Alexander Albon, who passed Sergio Perez via the grass on the final lap to take a superb fifth from 17th on the grid in his first race with his new team.

Racing Point’s Sergio Perez equalled his best result of the season in sixth, though the Mexican is under investigation for forcing Albon off the track, with Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat seventh. Antonio Giovinazzi was set for the best result of his career in eighth, but he crashed at Pouhon on the final lap, thankfully climbing out unscathed. Renault's Nico Hulkenberg crossed the line eighth, ahead of Pierre Gasly, who was visibly emotional on race morning follow the passing of his friend Hubert, in his first race back with Toro Rosso. Lance Stroll made it two Racing Points in the top 10 by rounding out the points.

Formula 1 heads straight to Italy, where the paddock will be rebuilt in time for next Sunday's race at high-speed Monza. Mercedes have triumphed there for the last five years, but it is Ferrari who head to their home race as favourites this time, courtesy of their class-leading power unit.

F1 2018: Sebastian Vettel wins Belgium Grand Prix

After being defeated in consecutive races going into F1’s annual summer break, Ferrari hit back in style as the season roared back into life in Belgium, with Sebastian Vettel brilliantly overhauling title rival Lewis Hamilton before leading the Mercedes driver home to eat his points advantage.

Vettel decisively claimed the lead on what was a chaotic first lap of the Grand Prix, in which a late - braking Nico Hulkenberg triggered an enormous crash at Turn 1 involving Fernando Alonso and Charles Leclerc. Kimi Raikkonen and Daniel Ricciardo, meanwhile, also picked up what would ultimately prove race-ending damage in a separate incident.

Meanwhile Max Verstappen delighted the hordes of Dutch fans who’d crossed the border to watch their hero race by claiming a surprise third place – very much a welcome result, given Red Bull’s struggles for pace around the Spa track throughout the weekend. The man on the move throughout the Spa race was Valtteri Bottas, with the Finn making his way up from P17 at the start of the race – having taken engine penalties for a new Mercedes power unit – to P4 by the end of the race with a string of incisive passes.

Others to have a happy day at Spa were Haas, who overcame their pace issues from Friday and Saturday’s practice sessions to claim a double points finish, with Grosjean in seventh and Magnussen in eighth. Elsewhere, Pierre Gasly will have been chuffed with ninth, while in Leclerc’s absence, Marcus Ericsson held up his end of the bargain for Sauber; bring the C37 10th after a solid afternoon. Stoffel Vandoorne, meanwhile, heads away from his home race with the ignominy of having been last in every single session of the weekend, having finished 15th out of 15 classified runners.

Nico Rosberg wins Belgian Grand Prix

A frenetic 2016 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix saw Mercedes Nico Rosberg take a commanding win from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, with the second Silver Arrow of Lewis Hamilton a fighting third, having started from the back of the grid.

Force India Nico Hulkenberg again missed out on that elusive maiden podium, finishing fourth ahead of team mate Sergio Perez and the Ferrari Sebastian Vettel, while Fernando Alonso, last on the grid was a superb seventh for McLaren. The Williams of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were eighth and tenth respectively, split by Kimi Raikkonen who completed the top ten in the second Ferrari.

For Rosberg it looked like a stroll in the Ardennes as he scored his sixth victory of the year, the 20^th of his career. Three cars were damaged; Verstappen lost a chunk of his front wing, Raikkonen sustained a puncture and front wing damage and limped to the pits, and Vettel also had resultant problems with his front wing. The incident compromised all of their races, through events on the sixth lap threw them a lifeline.

It was on the sixth lap that Kevin Magnussen lost the back end of his Renault, which was running in eighth place on team mate Jolyon Palmer tail, as he reached the top of Eau Rouge. Race was restarted 17 minutes later, after teams had had the chance to change to whatever tyres they wanted. World Champion Hamilton now has 232 points to Rosberg 223 and Ricciardo 151.