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Formula 1: Hamilton wins Belgian Grand Prix

Writer's picture: Andrew ZarbAndrew Zarb


Lewis Hamilton won his fifth Grand Prix of the season today in Belgium after beating Sebastian Vettel by just over 2 seconds, whilst Daniel Ricciardo completed the podium for Red Bull.

At the start, Hamilton got away well, and led going into La Source (Turn 1), with Vettel, Bottas, Raikkonen following him. Also, going up into Eau Rouge, the two Force India teammates collided, however neither driver suffered any significant damage from it. On lap 2, Sauber driver Pascal Wehrlein retired with a suspected supsension issue.

On lap 8, Red Bull driver Max Verstappen stopped with seemingly an engine failure, much to the huge disappointment of the thousands of Dutch fans who turned up to see their hero (not to mention Max Verstappen's huge disappointment as well). His retirement triggered yellow flags in the first Sector, and Kimi Raikkonen got a 10-second stop-and-go penalty (which seemed slightly harsh even if he did not show any sign of slowing) as a result (Kimi also got 3 penalty points on his superlicense).

Then, on lap 13, leader Lewis Hamilton pitted, just after his engineer Pete Bonnington told him "Lewis it's Hammertime" (basically implying to Hamilton to push as hard as possible), and he switched onto the softs. Hamilton crucially re-emerged ahead of Daniel Ricciardo in fourth place, and immediately closed the gap. Valtteri Bottas then pitted on lap 14.

Hamilton was going extremely quickly on the softs, and began to close in on Kimi Raikkonen. Ferrari tried to pit Sebastian Vettel in the hope that he would re-emerge ahead of the Brit (on lap 16), however, it failed, and Hamilton immediately after overtook Kimi Raikkonen (who had not stopped yet) for the lead. By lap 23, Hamilton had built up an advantage of around 1.7 seconds to Vettel.

Fernando Alonso retired on lap 28 with what he claimed was an engine issue once again, however it is arguable that he just retired the car because he was extremely bored and felt that the race was a lost cause. By lap 30, Hamilton's lead on Sebastian Vettel was 2 seconds. On the following lap, the two Force India drivers of Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon clashed for the second time in the race (and they have clashed before in other races), and this incident was to have far more reaching consequences, as Perez had a puncture and Ocon lost a chunk of his front wing.

As a result of the incident, the Safety Car was deployed, much to Hamilton's annoyance, saying "Why is the safety car out? There is no debris." All the leading drivers pitted, with Mercedes interestingly choosing to pit both Hamilton and Bottas on the soft tyres again, whereas Ferrari put Vettel on ultrasoft tyres (as well as Raikkonen), whilst even Ricciardo pitted for ultrasofts. The safety car went in at the end of lap 34, and on the restart Vettel attacked Hamilton for the lead and it seemed as though he would overtake him, though Hamilton defended beautifully going into Les Combes. Slightly further back, Daniel Ricciardo made a spectacular move on Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen to take third place.

At this point the order was: Hamilton, Vettel, Ricciardo, Raikkonen, Bottas, Hulkenberg, Grosjean, Massa, Ocon and Sainz. Hamilton eventually crossed the line on lap 44 to take his fifth win of the season, and his third of the season, beating Sebastian Vettel by two seconds in the end to close the gap in the World Championship to just seven points heading into Monza, the final race of the European season. The order remained as mentioned earlier in the paragraph.

Classification:

Lewis Hamilton - Mercedes

Sebastian Vettel - Ferrari

Daniel Ricciardo - Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer

Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari

Valtteri Bottas - Mercedes

Nico Hulkenberg - Renault

Romain Grosjean - Haas-Ferrari

Felipe Massa - Williams-Mercedes

Esteban Ocon - Force India-Mercedes

Carlos Sainz - Toro Rosso

Lance Stroll - Williams-Mercedes

Daniil Kvyat - Toro Rosso

Jolyon Palmer - Renault

Stoffel Vandoorne - McLaren-Honda

Kevin Magnussen - Haas-Ferrari

Marcus Ericsson - Sauber-Ferrari

Sergio Perez - Force India-Mercedes (retired 2 laps from the end of the race, but was classified having completed over 90% of the race distance)

Retired drivers: Fernando Alonso, Max Verstappen, Pascal Wehrlein

World Championship standings:

Sebastian Vettel - 220 points

Lewis Hamilton - 213 points

Valtteri Bottas - 179 points

Daniel Ricciardo - 132 points

Kimi Raikkonen - 128 points

Max Verstappen - 67 points

Sergio Perez - 56 points

Esteban Ocon - 47 points

Carlos Sainz - 36 points

Nico Hulkenberg - 34 points

Felipe Massa - 27 points

Romain Grosjean - 24 points

Lance Stroll - 18 points

Kevin Magnussen - 11 points

Fernando Alonso - 10 points

Pascal Wehrlein - 5 points

Daniil Kvyat - 4 points

Stoffel Vandoorne - 1 point

Jolyon Palmer - 0 points

Marcus Ericsson - 0 points

Antonio Giovinazzi - 0 points

Constructors' Championship standings:

Mercedes - 392 points

Ferrari - 348 points

Red Bull Racing-TAG Heuer - 199 points

Force India-Mercedes - 103 points

Williams-Mercedes - 45 points

Toro Rosso - 40 points

Haas-Ferrari - 35 points

Renault - 34 points

McLaren-Honda - 11 points

Sauber-Ferrari - 5 points


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