Andrea Kimi Antonelli was a Mercedes junior driver.© X (Twitter)

George Russell claimed a memorable if unexpected victory ahead of his Mercedes team-mate Lewis Hamilton in a thrilling finish to Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix, having started sixth on the grid. The 26-year-old Briton came home 0.526 seconds ahead of the seven-time world champion, who controlled most of the race before being called in for a second stop, with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri finishing third, just 1.173 seconds adrift of Russell.  Russell drove the 44-laps race with only one pit stop which led to him going 34 laps on his second set of tyres, a strategic decision taken during the contest enabling him to take the lead and an unexpected third career victory.  “Amazing, amazing result,” shrieked Russell. 

“We definitely didn’t predict this in our strategy meeting this morning but the car was awesome. We changed a lot on Friday night and the tyres felt great.

“I kept saying ‘I think we can do the one-stop, I think we can do the one-stop’ and the strategy was a really great job. 

“Well done to Lewis as he really controlled that race and if circumstances were slightly different, I’m sure he would have got the victory.

“One-two for the team was awesome and what a way to go to the break.”

Russell’s win also brought Mercedes a third win in four races following a poor run of results in the last two years.

“We had such a disaster on Friday when the car was nowhere,” said Hamilton, who led for most of the race until Russell’s strategy undercut the field. 

“We made some changes and it was difficult to know in the wet yesterday, but the car was fantastic. Congratulations to George and the team.”

Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who started on pole position, came home fourth ahead of three-time world champion and series leader Max Verstappen of Red Bull, Lando Norris in the second McLaren and Carlos Sainz in the second Ferrari. 

Sergio Perez, who started second, finished eighth in the second Red Bull ahead of two-time champion Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin and Esteban Ocon of Alpine. 

– Pit stop strategy –

After Saturday’s deluge, the race began in bright, warm and dry conditions. 

Leclerc enjoyed a smooth start from pole as Hamilton beat Perez to take second into La Source, where they battled wheel to wheel. 

Norris had a poor start and ran through a gravel trap, falling to seventh behind Russell and Sainz as the early order settled while Verstappen gained two places to rise to ninth, having started 11th due to a 10-place penalty for taking an additional new engine. 

Hamilton’s pace took him within reach of Leclerc on lap three when, using Drag Reduction System (DRS), he swept into the lead on the Kemmel Straight. 

He stayed there and by lap five led Leclerc by a second ahead of Perez, Piastri and Russell with Sainz sixth, the only top 10 driver on hard tyres, ahead of Norris and Verstappen. 

Russell and Verstappen came in after 10 laps, both switching from mediums to hards and re-joining in 13th and 14th respectively before Hamilton, Perez and Piastri pitted one lap later. 

Norris finally pitted on lap 16, rejoining eighth behind Verstappen with whom he battled until the end of the race.

With all of the other contenders pitting a second time, Russell became the fifth race leader and opted to stay out on the one-stop strategy. 

Hamilton closed but instead of waving his teammate through Russell was give the all-clear to race him, a potentially dangerous strategy from Mercedes as a flying Piastri quickly closed on them. 

With five laps to go, Hamilton was two seconds behind Russell and Piastri 5.4 adrift, the top three setting up a grandstand finish that saw Piastri close up to within two seconds while the Mercedes men tussled to the flag.    

“I thought I could catch them but clean air made such a big difference today,” said Piastri. 

Verstappen still leads the championship race with 275 points, 78 clear of Norris. Red Bull top the constructors’ championship 42 points ahead of McLaren.

Formula One now heads into a summer break with the next race in Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix on August 25.

Max Verstappen, facing a 10-place grid penalty for taking a new engine, topped the times for Red Bull ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in a qualifying session run in mixed wet-and-dry conditions at the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday. Leclerc will start Sunday’s race from pole position as he did in 2023 with Sergio Perez alongside him in the second Red Bull, the Mexican having ended a nightmare run of qualifying failures amid reports that his future with the team is at risk.

Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton qualified fourth for Mercedes and will share the second row of the grid with McLaren’s Lando Norris, who qualified fifth ahead of team-mate Oscar Piastri and George Russell in the second Mercedes.

Carlos Sainz was eighth in the second Ferrari in front of compatriot and two-time champion Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin, Esteban Ocon of Alpine and Alex Albon of Williams — who will be 10th on the grid ahead of Verstappen.

“It was a nice qualifying and luckily the weather was ok,” said Verstappen, referring to earlier heavy rain that turned final practice into a washout. “It was raining a little bit, but we could do a decent session.

“I know I have to start 10 places back so this was the best I could do today and we’ll go from there. I don’t know quick we are going to be, but I hope we can be in the mix.”

Verstappen will be bidding to win the Belgian race for the fourth consecutive year, having won previously after taking grid penalties, but his car this year lacks the same clear superiority. Last year, he won from sixth. This year he starts 11th.

“It’s exactly the same as last year and, for me, it’s good as I didn’t expect that. We had tricky conditions and the rain helped us a bit and it’s good to be back at the front of the grid,” said Leclerc.

In steady but light rain, Norris led a train of cars from the pitlane for Q1, followed by both Haas cars and his McLaren team-mate Piastri, who was forced to drop to fourth by an exit by Kevin Magnussen that he described as “dangerous”.

– Racing in the rain –

A heavy shower was forecast by McLaren and this accelerated all 20 drivers to join the fray in pursuit of an early banker lap before the conditions deteriorated. All were on intermediates as Norris clocked 1:58.894 before being beaten by Piastri, in 1:57.411.

Verstappen then took over on top in 1:56.003 with Piastri threatening and taking second before rising to take command with five minutes to go in 1:55.549, before the Dutchman regained the ascendancy.

He clocked 1:54.938 to go six-tenths clear of Piastri while Norris struggled to match him and Russell fought to survive, rising from 17th to third in the final seconds of Q1.

Taking advantage of a problem for Verstappen, who was involved in a blocking incident with Zhou Guanyu’s Sauber, Piastri took top spot again in 1:54.835 ahead of Pierre Gasly.

The early departures were taken by the two Haas men, Nico Hulkenberg and Magnussen, RB’s Yuki Tsunoda, who will start from the back of the grid after taking a penalty for new power unit parts, Logan Sargeant of Williams and Zhou.

Q2 began in similar fashion, with rain forecast and all 15 runners on track, Alex Albon setting the early pace for Williams before Norris took over in 1:54.459 and then Verstappen, in 1:53.857. All were on ‘inters’ again.

With five minutes to go, Russell and Leclerc, with fresh tyres, were both in the drop-zone as the rain intensified. Russell reacted by leaping to fourth followed by Leclerc, taking third, and Hamilton up fifth.

Late faster laps from Perez, Ocon and Gasly pushed the Mercedes pair to go second and third while the under-pressure Perez survived by 0.003 seconds. Albon, Pierre Gasly of Alpine, Daniel Ricciardo of RB, Sauber’s Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll, whose Aston Martin team had rebuilt his car after his crash in FP3, missed the cut.

Hamilton was first out for Q3 and posted a lap in 1:54.011 as a marker.

On their first runs, only the two Red Bulls beat him, Verstappen going top in 1:53.159, leaving it all down to the final laps to decide the final grid order.

Audi have announced former Ferrari Team Principal Mattia Binotto as the new boss of their Formula 1 project on Tuesday. Earlier this year German car maker Audi took full ownership of the Sauber team, which will be run under the Audi banner from 2026, with an all-new power unit currently being developed in-house in Germany. Binotto, 54, will take charge of the operation on August 1 as Chief Operating and Chief Technical Officer, based at the Sauber factory in Hinwil, Switzerland. He will report directly to the board of directors.

In the restructuring, former McLaren Team Principal Andreas Seidl, who joined Sauber in January 2023 as CEO of the Audi team, is departing, along with Audi executive Oliver Hoffmann, who was overseeing the project. Binotto served as Chief Technical Officer at Ferrari before being promoted to Team Principal in 2019. He left the role in 2022 after three years and had been with the Scuderia since the mid-1990s.

“I am delighted that we have been able to recruit Mattia Binotto for our ambitious Formula 1 project,“ said Audi CEO Gernot Dollner. “With his extensive experience of more than 25 years in Formula 1, he will undoubtedly be able to make a decisive contribution to Audi.“

Explaining the restructure, Dollner added: “Our aim is to bring the entire Formula 1 project up to F1 speed by means of clear management structures, defined responsibilities, reduced interfaces, and efficient decision-making processes. For this purpose, the team must be able to act independently and quickly.

“I would like to thank Oliver and Andreas for their important work in establishing our entry into Formula 1 and their commitment to preparing it,“ he said.

Nico Hulkenberg, who will leave Haas at the conclusion of the season to join Kick Sauber, is the first driver confirmed to be a part of Audi’s team. The German driver called the move “interesting” and “very exciting”.

Since 2022, Chinese racer Zhou Guanyu and Finnish driver Valtteri Bottas have represented the Hinwil team; however, when the current campaign concludes, it is unclear what lies ahead for either driver.

945 days. 56 Grand Prix races. For a man who had won in every season of Formula 1 till then to have to wait for so long for another win seems beyond belief. But Sir Lewis Hamilton – the most successful driver in the history of his sport – had to wait that long. Through spells of agony, self-doubt and crushed glimmers of hope. But when it came, it came in the best way possible. Lewis Hamilton claimed his 104th F1 win at his home British Grand Prix on Sunday.

The win was, by all means, a fairytale. On a track no one drives quite like he does. In front of a colosseum of fans adorned in his masks and race number ’44’. He had won in Silverstone a record eight times before – including perhaps one of Formula 1’s greatest-ever drives in 2008 – but his ninth win, in 2024, is perhaps the most special.

“I can’t stop crying,” said Hamilton in the post-race interview. “Since 2021, every day getting up, trying to fight, to train, to put my mind to the task and work as hard as I can,” Hamilton tried to reason.

He didn’t need to. After having a championship taken away from him in heartbreaking circumstances at the end of 2021, Hamilton never got a chance to fight back as Mercedes fell down the pecking order.

Too many times, he had had his ability questioned. Sunday allowed Lewis Hamilton to release years of pent-up emotion: from needing a result for the effort he put, to being able to prove, to himself, that he has still got it. Oh boy, has he still got it.

On Sunday, Hamilton rode the ebbs and flows better than anyone else. He overtook teammate and pole-sitter George Russell on track. He then closed the gap to Lando Norris in a faster McLaren through a tricky spell of rain. Blitzed his outlap to overtake Norris after the final pitstops. And when Norris faded, Hamilton stayed strong, taking care of his soft tyres till the end to hold off a fast-charging Max Verstappen.

It wasn’t a win through luck, or in the fastest car; accusations that’ve unfairly been thrown Hamilton’s way in the past. Instead, it was a display of sheer genius. Hamilton was the best driver on Sunday. Period.

Hamilton himself admitted that he rarely cries. But as he teared up inside his car and then went on to have a long embrace with his father, it brought back memories of Turkey 2020.

Turkey 2020 was the race when Hamilton equalled the record for the most championships in Formula 1 history. The fact that this win caused Hamilton to react in a similar manner to that record-breaking race tells you everything about the magnitude, and what it meant to him.

To top it all off, the win came in Silverstone, his home race. The circuit where a part of the track is named after him. It’s the place where the crowd roars loudest for Formula 1’s most popular driver. As an emotional Hamilton jumped over the barriers and waved the Union Jack high, it was hard to not let a tear escape.

“To make him win again, at the British Grand Prix, in his last race for Mercedes here, it’s almost like a little fairytale. You couldn’t have scripted it better,” quipped Mercedes team principal Toto Wolff at the end of the race.

Despite turning 40 next year, Hamilton may still have many more romantic chapters to write as he prepares to don the Ferrari red next season. But he’ll have to do quite something to beat Sunday’s storyline.

McLaren’s Lando Norris (centre) took pole position for the Spanish GP.© AFP