© LAT Images for Mercedes-Benz Grand Prix Ltd
By Carol M. Creasey
After the last two races where Lewis Hamilton scored a win and a podium, he was excited to get to Belgium.
The track at Spa is one he likes a lot, having won there 5 times in the past. However, during practice both Lewis and George Russell found their cars very hard to drive, and so the engineers decided to take the updates off the car, and revert to the settings from the British Grand Prix. Later Trackside Engineering Director Andrew Shovlin found out what the problem was, so they went into Qualifying not really knowing what to expect.
Max Verstappen had a new engine, so would be taking a 10-place grid penalty. He was very fast in qualifying, which had wet conditions, and easily got pole by six tenths of a second. Lewis came 4th, Leclerc was 2nd, and Perez 3rd, with Russell 7th. The penalty meant Verstappen would start in 11th position, and they all moved up a place, which made Lewis 3rd. He stated afterwards that it would be a tough race, with Red Bull and McLaren having a faster car, so to make the podium would be difficult. But, as always, he promised to give his all. Pundits suggested that, with the raw pace his new engine was showing, Verstappen would quickly make his way to the front.
Race day was warm and sunny, but not too hot, which is always better for Mercedes. Lewis made a great start, immediately overtaking Perez for P2. A couple of laps later he had passed Leclerc, and clearly shown he meant business. He held the lead and controlled the race. Verstappen struggled to make headway, which surprised everyone, and seemed to be continually stuck in a DRS train. Lewis had a good pit stop, and changed to Hard tyres from Mediums. The fast McLarens didn’t seem to be making inroads either, which was a huge surprise, as Spa is a track where drivers usually are able to overtake.
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After the first pit stops, Lewis still held the lead of the race, and then he was called in for another pit stop, some 16 laps before the end of the race. He told his race engineer that his tyres were still good, but he was still advised to pit, and he did so. Then Russell was told to “box, box”, but he stated that he wanted to stay out. He was at that time running 1st because everyone else including Lewis had pitted. The team agreed to let him stay out. Some laps later, Russell was asked again if he wanted to pit, but he insisted he wanted to stay out so the team went with his decision.
When Lewis realized George was not pitting, he asked his race engineer Bono if he had enough laps left to catch George on his newer tyres. Bono said he could, but it would be close, so Lewis set himself the task of catching up his team-mate. He managed to get up to two tenths behind George, but was unable to pass because of the dirty air. In the meantime Piastri was closing in on Lewis, who was being held up by a much slower Russell, so there was an increased risk of the McLaren driver passing them both. However that did not happen, so George won, Lewis was 2nd, and he just managed to hold off Piastri by less than a second.
After the race Lewis explained in his interview that he had told his engineer his tyres were good, but taken the advice given that it was better to pit. Within 2 hours, it was announced that Russell had been disqualified because his car was too light. Apparently only doing 1 stop had worn his tyres down too much, which made the car lighter. This meant Lewis was the winner, Piastri was now 2nd, and Leclerc 3rd.
Lewis later went on social media to state how sorry he was that George had been disqualified, it wasn’t the way he liked to win, but the positive to take away from Mercedes’ performance was that they were heading into the summer break with a much improved car. The team apologised to Russell and said they would look into the weight problem and learn from it. Russell took a chance by questioning the strategy, if he had pitted, it was believed he would have come 5th with 10 points, but sadly for him, being disqualified meant he lost all of his points.
The season is getting much more exciting with battles between different drivers at every race, and Red Bull has slipped away again, with Verstappen taking 5th and Perez 8th. With the summer break now over, Mercedes will look to continue their run of success at the Dutch Grand Prix, which is looking to be another exciting race, in a season that has finally brought much needed close competition to Formula 1.
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