Max Verstappen put on a supreme drive to come home as the outright winner of the Belgian Grand Prix at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
Max was starting down at P14 after grid penalties. This gave Carlos Sainz of Ferrari the pole position start alongside Max’s teammate Sergio Perez. Sainz started well but behind him there was a lot of action. Alonso squeezed into P2 on the exit of la Source. But Hamilton was right on his tail and went slightly ahead of Alonso after picking up the slipstream down the Kemmel Straight. Going into Les Combes, Hamilton appeared to shut the door on Alonso, which caused Hamilton’s right rear tire to touch Alonso’s left front. This sent Hamilton airborne as Alonso sped past. Lewis was unable to continue with the damage and stopped at Blanchimont.
Alfa Romeo man Valtteri Bottas also had a bad outing on his birthday as he got tangled with the spinning Williams of Nicolas Latifi who had lost control after running into the gravel. He had to retire from the race.
The safety car was brought out. But by the time the race restarted, Max found himself in a nice and comfortable eighth place. Sainz was leading Perez still. Meanwhile, the Ferrari crew pitted Leclerc for a set of medium tires after an issue in the brake duct on the right front.
Sainz was next to pit for softs, which let Max take the lead after Perez let him through. The Dutchman went on to dominate at the front as he kept extending his gap. He took another free stop at lap 31, sitting around 28 seconds ahead of Perez at that time. He held on at the front to win over his teammate by over 18 seconds. Verstappen also claimed the fastest lap which Ferrari tried to inherit by pitting Charles with a couple of laps to go only to lose out a place to Fernando Alonso. But Leclerc took P5 back from Alonso to finish the race.
Misfortune struck Charles Leclerc after the race as the Monegasque driver was penalized with a 5-second penalty for speeding in the pitlane which saw him drop down to sixth position.
Perez came home second with Sainz completing the podium. George Russell came home 4th with Alonso 5th, Leclerc 6th, Ocon 7th, Vettel 8th, Gasly 9th and Albon with 10th place, the last of the points scoring drivers.
Stroll came 11th, Norris who was stuck behind Albon and Stroll came 12th, Tsunoda 13th, Zhou 14th, Ricciardo 15th, Magnussen 16th, Schumacher 17th and Latifi 18th.
With this win, Verstappen takes his 29th career victory and extends the lead over 2nd place man Sergio Perez by 93 points. Leclerc sits 3rd in the driver’s championship with 186 points.
For the next race, F1 heads to Zandvoort in the Netherlands, for Max Verstappen’s home grand prix.
Image credit: AFP
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