While Verstappen wins yet again, Leclerc brings Ferrari back to the podium!

The Belgian Grand Prix closes this edition with a race win never in question for Max Verstappen. This time his teammate Perez is next to the Dutchman on the second step of the podium, who helps Red Bull bringing home a one-two that was missing even from the Miami GP, at the beginning of May... In third position we find Charles Leclerc, author of an clean race that rewards him with the third podium of the season.

Here's the final classification of the race:

At Spa we witnessed 44 straightforward laps, without any kind of neutralization but with only a few showers of rain in the middle of the race. By the way, nothing that forced the drivers to pit and fit wet tyres: after a few laps the asphalt was completely dry again, and that was the case right up to the chequered flag.

Thus avoiding the use of Intermediate or Full Wet tyres, from a strategy point of view the race was mostly held over two pit stops, with notable exceptions such as Russell, Stroll and Gasly (on a single pit stop) and the two Williams' drivers, who instead changed their tyres three times. Lewis Hamilton's three-stop strategy, on the other hand, can be regarded as a two-stop strategy: the last pit stop (on lap 42 out of 44) served only to aim - successfully - at the fastest lap of the race, then obtained in the last lap with a laptime of 1'47"305.

Steven Tee / Motorsport Images

Among the protagonists of the race we can't find the Ferrari of Carlos Sainz and the McLaren of Oscar Piastri, who collided in Turn 1 immediately after the start. It's known that the Source hairpin has historically been prone to accidents at the start due to the shape of the track in that section; but I personally believe that if there are any faults to be attributed in the Sainz-Piastri collision, these are on the former's shoulders.

“An accident like this in Turn 1 is annoying... My race start wasn't bad, I tried to overtake Hamilton at the Source hairpin: I had even passed him, but Oscar's is a mistake of experience. If you look at the last 7-8 years here, everyone who tries to go inside there gets into an accident, but I don't want to blame anyone or blame Oscar. It was a racing accident and this time it was up to me to pay the consequences"

Carlos Sainz

Sainz's move approaching the Source hairpin is one that hardly leaves room for maneuver to his opponents: a change of direction to the right in the braking zone, a lock-up of the front right tyre (a sign of how much the Spaniard was on the edge with the grip) and, once at the apex, the collision between the right side of his Ferrari SF-23 and the front left wheel of the Australian's McLaren.

"It was a classic Turn 1 crash on the first lap, and it's a shame we paid the price. But I don't think I could have done anything different honestly: once Carlos went to the right and blocked his front right tyre, didn't leave me many options for tackling the corner"

Oscar Piastri

The reason why I agree with the McLaren driver is that he just couldn't have disappeared from the piece of tarmac where he was, so Sainz (who criticizes Piastri's inexperience) certainly wasn't smarter than him, also considering the final outcome of the accident...

For the record, while Oscar had to retire almost immediately, Carlos tried to stay on track in the hope of a red flag. But such opportunity didn't materialize, and the Spaniard had to pit on lap 23 to end his race.

The race at the top: Verstappen pulls away, close battle between Leclerc and Hamilton

The dynamics of the race can be divided into three main groups: the fight at the top (in which Verstappen took part only for the first half of the race) with Perez, Leclerc and Hamilton, a small group including Alonso, Russell and Norris, and then the rest of the grid, rather close in terms of performance.

Belgian GP - Race pace held by Verstappen, Perez, Leclerc and Hamilton

Belgian GP - Race pace held by Verstappen, Perez, Leclerc and Hamilton

The fact that they all completed the race using the same strategy makes it easier to read the performances of the first four at the finish line.

And so we find, without major surprises, that for pretty much all the race Verstappen's pace was simply unaffordable: his laptimes at times even came close to a second of adgantage over Perez, and the gap between the two - after 4 or 5 laps in which the rain had calmed down the race pace - grew dramatically, up to 22.305 s on the finish line.

Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Instead, it's surprising that between Perez and the Leclerc-Hamilton duo there wasn't a huge difference: the Mexican had no reason to push hard after about 30 laps, with Max being too far in front, but I would have expected to see Checo build a safety margin of at least ten seconds over Leclerc. In doing so, he would have been safe from the eventuality of a Safety Car which, luckily for him, never came, but which could have cost him a couple of positions!

"At the beginning the important thing was to survive in turn 1, I saw that there were so many battles ahead of me and I understood that I had to play it safe. We were stuck in the DRS train at the start, but then when I was able to set my pace, it was once again a very pleasant race. At Eau Rouge I had a moment during the rain laps, and those are the worst corners to have it: I went sideways but luckily nothing happened [... ] Do I win from any position? I like it, it's a good spot for me!"

Max Verstappen

"Today was a good race for the team, with a great start for me in which I was able to overtake Leclerc straight away, which was one of today's objectives. Then I tried to do my race and when Max arrived, in second stint, he was really fast, so I could do nothing to defend from him. At that point I just tried to cross the line safely, without doing any damage [...] Now I hope to always go on the podium, after a really difficult period: but first comes the summer break, which I really needed!"

Sergio Perez

How did Leclerc manage to defend his third position from Hamilton?

At the beginning of the race, when the positions had settled with Leclerc second in front of Hamilton after lap 1, the latter remained in his DRS zone for many laps. Remember that both were running the first stint on a set of new Soft tyres, a compound which - in hindsight - proved to be very good despite Spa's high tyre wear level.

Michael Potts / Motorsport Images

In those very laps the factor that kept the Ferrari driver ahead of the Mercedes driver (even after Verstappen overtook both) was the top speed of the SF-23, deliberately triggered when the Ferrari engineers had decided a low-download setup for both their cars. This approach (as mentioned at the beginning of the weekend) is completely opposite to what McLaren has done, about which we'll talk more later...

"The weekend was quite positive in terms of our race pace. Obviously the race went well for me, but it's a shame for Carlos... If we look at Red Bull, however, there is still a lot to do, there are many aspects on which they are still a long way ahead [...] The duel with Lewis? I was convinced to be able to stay in front of him until the pitwall told me to save fuel. Then when they told me he came into the pits to try to set the fastest lap, it made my life easier"

Charles Leclerc

Once Hamilton lost the DRS from Leclerc, the Monegasque took advantage of it in order to open a gap of about 3 or 4 seconds on the Englishman: enough to avoid any risks in the event of an undercut, which took place during the second round of pit stops, but it simply didn't work. After the whole pit stop sequence, Lewis' only chance to grab the podium would have been to overtake Charles on track.

Michael Potts / Motorsport Images

Before the end of the race, with Charles still ahead of Lewis, there was one final alarm bell on the SF-23: Xavi Marcos asked his driver to save fuel in the closing laps, probably because at the start of the race the car had been fueled with slightly less fuel than needed. This is common for all teams, who prefer to take advantage of a lighter single-seater for many laps and then minimize their fuel consumption under Safety Car conditions (although this wasn't the case at Spa) or by asking the driver to do some "lift and coast", namely lifting the throttle pedal about a hundred meters before the braking zone.

"Today we struggled to get close to Leclerc, he was too fast. I did the best I could with the package we have: the only thing I could do today was taking away the fastest lap from Verstappen, after he had pulled away... Now let's try to keep our second place in the Constructors' World Championship and third in the Drivers' Championship, there's not much else you can do nowadays [...] I can't wait to have a new car next year!"

Lewis Hamilton

Best possible result for Alonso, even ahead of Russell!

Behind the top 4, Fernando Alonso's race can only be described as a result maximization. With an Aston Martin AMR23 in sharp decline since a few races, the 2-times World Champion finishes the race ahead of the Mercedes of George Russell and Lando Norris' McLaren.

"I was lucky at the start: I recovered a few positions at Eau Rouge, but then I was afraid of not maintaining the position in the first stint. The car was fantastic today and it gave me confidence, but the whole team did an incredible job. Now is the time to recharge our batteries during the summer break, and come back stronger"

Fernando Alonso

What does the race pace analysis of the three drivers tell us?

Belgian GP - Race pace held by Alonso, Russell and Norris

Belgian GP - Race pace held by Alonso, Russell and Norris

Immediately after the incident between Sainz and Piastri on the first lap, both Russell and Norris lost time and positions to get rid of the Australian's damaged McLaren. From that moment on, the idea arose in the minds of the Mercedes engineers of completing the race on a single pit stop with George Russell: for this reason, the English driver was asked to carefully manage his Medium tyres fitted in the first stint, a necessity that Alonso - running in clean air - never had, allowing himself the luxury of a double pit stop!

Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

And Norris, in all this? The McLaren's Englishman, in my opinion, paid dearly for two factors:

  • The very high downforce setup chosen by the McLaren engineers, who were hoping for a wet race: we can judge the choice wrong in retrospect, but if the rain had really arrived on the circuit, Lando would have been in an enviable position... Just look at his laptimes in the few wet laps, it was 3 to 4 seconds faster than Fernando!
  • The strategy adopted by his pitwall, which forced him to make two pit stops with a pretty bad timing: a first pit stop to switch from the Mediums to the Hards on lap 5, and then a second stop to switch to the Softs on lap 17;

"A good result after a frustrating start of the race... We didn't have good pace and were having too much trouble overtaking and defending on the straights. It was terrible, in the first laps we went further and further back, we were stuck in a vicious circle where in the high-speed section they overtook us, while in the second sector we couldn't push because of the slower cars ahead. Whoever was behind me had to lift at Eau Rouge, and in any case they passed me before the DRS activation point. The only thing that worked was fitting the Softs in the end: I finished in P7, and I honestly don't know how I did it"

Lando Norris

If we think that Norris finished the race only 10 seconds behind George Russell, it's easy to imagine that even with just a better strategy he could have gained sixth position over his compatriot... But this was not the case, so Lando didn't reach the podium after two good second places at Silverstone and at the Hungaroring.

Close midfield as always, only the Williams try a three-stop strategy

On the edge of the points paying positions (and behind tenth place) we find a very close group of cars, from which Yuki Tsunoda's Alpha Tauri surprisingly emerges. With the point conquered, his team gats closer to Williams and Haas in the Constructors' standings, now eight points away.

But this is a fight that until the end of the championship will be played on a few points, given the number of cars that usually monopolize the top 10: so in Faenza they will be very happy with the performance of the Japanese driver, so far the only one to bring points this season - waiting for Ricciardo to come back to his Red Bull's days level.

Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

As mentioned, the only ones in the rear to opt for a three-stop strategy were the two Williams drivers, who however didn't take advantage of it enough to hope for some points. Honestly, I would have expected more from the Grove team here at Spa, above all due to the nature of the track, which is very favorable to the technical characteristics of their FW45: this time, what was missing was the execution more than the performance (Albon at one point of the race was P7)!

The summer break begins: in four weeks there's the Dutch GP at Zandvoort

The first part of the championship ends with the checkered flag on the Spa circuit: twelve races all won by Red Bull (10 with Verstappen and 2 with Perez) which will be followed by another ten events before closing this 2023 season. The first race after the summer break will be the home Grand Prix for the World Champion, who in his Zandvoort will try to repeat the race wins of 2022 and 2021, when the Dutch race had returned to the Championship in the wake of the commercial success that Max was establishing in his country.

Witout any race to analyze, here on Race Analysis you'll find new technical content: stay tuned, and see you next time!

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