Belgian GP: Kimi Antonelli takes big Spa-Francorchamps victory to capitalize on George Russell’s exit from clash with Lewis Hamilton | F1 News

Kimi Antonelli unluckily overtook Charles Leclerc in a Virtual Safety Car and won the Belgian Grand Prix in a major fresh blow to team-mate George Russell’s title hopes for a day.

The Briton doubled his inside advantage over Russell to 50 points after the Briton crashed into the gravel at the fifth corner of the first lap in a collision with Lewis Hamilton, which the stewards blamed on the Ferrari driver.

Hamilton was given a five-second penalty, which he served in his only pit stop, and eventually finished fourth ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastre with four laps to go.

Hamilton and Ferrari faced a post-race investigation for releasing an unsafe Ferrari at the same pit stop.

A mechanic hit the Ferrari’s front right tire and briefly dropped to his knees after incorrectly signaling Hamilton to leave his pit box. The mechanic was unharmed.

Ferrari was fined €30,000 for the incident, a third of which was suspended for 12 months.

Hamilton finished second behind Antonelli ahead of Russell – 45 points behind the Italian, whose sixth win of the season cemented his championship favorite status with one race to go in Hungary before Formula 1’s summer break this coming week.

Max Verstappen, who took the lead from Antonelli on the first lap at Eau Rouge before the Mercedes almost immediately exploded to the rear, finished third despite being jumped by Leclerc during the VSC.

The Dutchman struggled on hard tires in the closing stages and finished nine seconds behind Leclerc for Red Bull’s 300th podium finish in F1.

Isaac Hajja drove strongly to finish sixth in the second Red Bull on the back row, making two pit stops opportunistically for Russell to crash to meet the mandatory race-tyre requirement.

Hajjar held off Lando Norris, who was on remarkably new tyres, after 30 laps before McLaren made one of his pit stops to start a penalty 13th on the grid.

Gabriel Bortoletto was eighth for Audi ahead of Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto.

How faultless was Antonelli for a hard-fought victory

Mercedes’ world championship leader was heavy favorite to win the race after qualifying in a dominant pole position but the 19-year-old’s path to victory on Sunday did not prove as straightforward as many had hoped across a tense 44 laps of racing at Spa-Francorchamps.

However, Antonelli was always prepared to fight to maintain his lead from fellow front-row-starter Verstappen through the first lap of the race, due to the slipstream-friendly nature of the Belgian’s opening lap.

He led in the short initial run towards La Source but, between stages of power-up, Verstappen overtook him as he reached the bottom of Eau Rouge.

But Antonelli had more battery power on hand for the long Kemmel straight and breezed right past the Red Bull before the next braking zone at Les Combes.

Meanwhile, Leclerc made a great start from fourth place and also passed Verstappen.

Verstappen slipped past the Ferrari for second place on lap six and, impressively so the pre-race expectation was that Antonelli would run and hide, managed to keep the leading Mercedes in front. He was less than three seconds behind Antonelli during the first 17 laps.

Antonelli stopped a lap later to maintain the net race lead ahead of Red Bull.

But Ferrari kept both their drivers out for long periods and benefited when, on the 20th, the Virtual Safety Car was launched for debris on the track.

By forcing the cars on the circuit to run at lower speeds, Ferrari was able to pit their drivers simultaneously while losing less race time than a non-VSC stop.

It worked a treat as Leclerc jumped both Verstappen and Antonelli on his return to the circuit.

However, Hamilton, who first had to serve his five-second penalty before his tire change began, was further delayed when a mechanic was asked to adjust his front wing due to confusion after the Briton incorrectly received the green light to leave the box.

Leclerc re-emerged 2.5 seconds ahead of Antonelli and with the apparent advantage of the slightly new hard tyre.

But Mercedes had too much pace and, unlike two weeks ago at Silverstone when the Silver Arrows suffered technical problems just as it looked set to overtake Ferrari for the lead, Antonelli Kemmel moved ahead of Leclerc in the straight on lap 34.

Not only did Mercedes pull away from Ferrari after that, Antonelli eventually took the checkered flag just 1.9 seconds ahead of Leclerc to secure a narrow but significant victory in the context of both his recent misfortune and Russell’s early exit.

“Obviously it’s great to be back on the top step after a couple of tough rounds,” said Antonelli. “It was a tough fight. We lost first place in a VSC but then we managed to claw our way back.

“It was a tough win because Charles was fast and we had to hold them off.”

Second place followed Leclerc’s win at Silverstone amid a resurgence of his form, and the Monegasque said: “I believed in the win at the end. We had a bit of luck with the VSC at the right time for us but the pace was relatively strong.

“There were five or six laps on the hard tire when I was struggling with the front axle, then it came back a bit.”

Russell Hamilton laments Mercedes’ straight-line speed problems after tangle

Race day could go very badly for a frustrated Russell in another title-contending Mercedes car.

The Briton qualified third, a position he held until Kemmel Straight on lap one when both Ferraris passed him and he also came under attack from Piastre’s McLaren.

Russell attempted to return to Hamilton on the outside of his compatriot under braking at the right-hand turn at Les Combes, but the Ferrari understeered and tagged the Mercedes’ right-rear wheel, sending it spinning into the gravel.

The stewards could have penalized Hamilton for the incident, but Russell instead picked up the mysterious straight-line speed issues that dogged his Mercedes all weekend.

“I just swallowed straight,” said a depressed Russell.

“I lost three positions down the straight at turn five and then the incident was a racing incident.

“Maybe I could have been a little bit wider, maybe he (Hamilton) could have braked a little bit more. If I had gone down the straight it wouldn’t have happened.”

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