STAVELOT, Belgium – Lewis Hamilton was once again in his own league during Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.
The Mercedes driver started from the pole and led every lap to claim his 89th career victory and his fifth in seven races so far this year. He beat his teammate, Valtteri Bottas, to the finish by more than eight seconds.
“Spa is such a special circuit, I could just drive around here for lap after lap,” Hamilton said. “It’s not always been an easy one for me, so to come here and get pole and the win this weekend is fantastic. The first lap can be a nightmare, because of the huge tow down the big straight, but I managed to keep Valtteri behind me on lap one and from there I had a strong race.
“Of course, I’d love to be able to win every race wheel to wheel, but today was a different kind of race, it was all about managing the tires and the gap to the cars behind. I was slightly nervous at the end that we might see a repeat of the tyre issue we had in Silverstone, but thankfully it held in there. Huge credit to the team, both here and back home in Brackley and Brixworth. No matter how much success we’ve had over the years, everyone just keeps their heads down and focuses on trying to improve. It’s an incredible mentality to have and it’s inspiring to be working in that kind of environment.”
Max Verstappen finished a distant third for Red Bull as the top-three finishers spent the entire race in the positions from which they started.
Daniel Ricciardo started and finished fourth, but spent much of the race battling with other competitors before eventually taking the first spot off the podium for Renault. He was followed by his Renault teammate Esteban Ocon, who made a last-lap pass on Red Bull driver Alexander Albon to take fifth.
Albon settled for sixth ahead of McLaren’s Lando Norris, AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and Racing Point’s Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez.
The only major incident during Sunday’s race took place on the 11th circuit, when Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi crashed and collected the Williams of George Russell. Both cars were severely damaged, but both drivers walked away from the incident.
The day was a struggle for the Ferrari duo of Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel, with neither driver managing to score points. Leclerc finished 14th, with Vettel coming home 13th.