Nico Rosberg won the Belgian Grand Prix, cutting Lewis Hamilton’s title lead to nine points after his Mercedes team-mate roared back to claim third place.
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It could have been a lot worse for Hamilton who produced an impressive performance to secure a podium place against the odds.
“To come away with the points we have today, I’m extremely proud of everyone”. “Having made some changes to the auto before qualifying, I am very pleased”.
“It wasn’t the toughest race of course because Lewis wasn’t there, that’s for sure. It will not be easy”. It was also his sixth of the season, third in a row and Mercedes’ 48th in the last 51 races.
As Formula One roars back into life following its summer break, Hamilton has largely been a spectator after his Mercedes team chose to take a penalty – one which has been lingering over the world champion following a series of engine failures in the opening phase of the season – here in Belgium.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen tried to fit his vehicle inside the two Ferraris of Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel on the first lap, taking all three away from the front of the pack.
But with 20,000 Dutch fans here, the 18-year-old driver will be especially keen to get out on track.
“You can always do a better job, but Nico could have done a better lap too”, said Verstappen. Not eventually in the race, but up to that point they were very close. “It’s such a great motivation”.
“After the chequered flag, I looked at the results and I knew Daniel was behind me and then I see “HAM” in P3 and I was like ‘What?” The pole was there.
First, a slow-starting Verstappen was gobbled up by the Ferrari duo of Vettel and Raikkonen before Vettel turned into his teammate with Raikkonen then bumping into Verstappen. Vettel said, topping off his quick rant with an expletive.
“But it’s been hot all weekend”.
Numerous cars we thought would be in contention came together early on in the race.
German Nico Hulkenberg finished fourth ahead of his Force India team-mate Sergio Perez, as the Silverstone-based team overhauled rivals Williams in the constructors’ championship. Things have happened in the right way, that second quarter of the season, and to go into the break 19 points ahead and only lose 10 points today, is. well, if someone had said, going into the break that “you are going to lose 10 points in the next race and take three new engines, are you okay with that?” “Fair play to Lewis”. Vettel, whose Ferrari SF16-H sustained the most damage, needed to pit on lap one of the race.
Later it was Vettel’s turn to swap places and bang wheels with the Red Bull as Verstappen proved again that he’s going to be a major force in years to come.
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Despite the need to make up ground at the start, Hamilton revealed he took a low-risk approach to an opening lap which witnessed a first-corner clash between the two Ferraris and Max Verstappen.
