Lewis Hamilton celebrated his record-equaling 68th pole position with victory at the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday, trimming championship leader Sebastian Vettel’s lead to seven points.
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“I’m here to deliver a very special message from Corinna Schumacher and the Schumacher family, who want to congratulate you on equalling Michael’s record”, he told the driver in front of the crowd.
Hamilton’s teammate Valtteri Bottas finished half a second shy of Hamilton in third place.
“Sebastian was very, very close”.
Now second and 14 points in arrears of the German, Hamilton is bidding for a sixth victory of 2017 at this week’s F1 host track, Spa-Francorchamps, in his Brackley-based Mercedes. “That’s what racing’s about”.
“Really brilliant”, Mercedes head of motorsport Toto Wolff said. I was waiting for Lewis to do a mistake but he didn’t.
Vettel joined his title rival on the front row after pulling out a late flying lap of 1:42.795.
The Belgian GP 2017 qualifying got underway with Mercedes cars out first, the order after the first runs was Hamilton, Vettel, Verstappen, Raikkonen, Bottas, Ricciardo, Ocon, Palmer, Perez and Vandoorne.
“The last race is one of the best examples of how great the team is now”, Hamilton added. However, Raikkonen showed good pace in the final of three practice sessions and although he was unable to challenge for pole, Vettel felt confident that Ferrari had the pace to challenge for the win.
Two laps later Vettel went in for a set of softs and Hamilton wasted no time in getting past Raikkonen when Ferrari would have been hoping for the Finn to hold the three-time world champion up. “I’m in no hurry, I know that I am in a good position”, he said. “I’m looking forward to next week”.
57 – Hamilton tasted his opening victory at the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix, and has won 56 further races.
The two title contenders remained in close contention for several laps until, following another enforced retirement for Fernando Alonso and his powerless McLaren Honda, the Safety Car was deployed on lap 30 following another acrimonious collision between the two Force India cars.
Their tense relationship is degrading fast. The Ferrari has generally had the upper hand, particularly on race pace, throughout the weekend and very, very strong today and obviously I was towing him around everywhere, so they were getting a good tow out of the straights.
Red Bull’s Ricciardo attempted an alternate strategy, taking the supersoft rubber on his first stop and then gaining a free stop behind the safety vehicle he took the ultrasoft and made the most of it.
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“I can’t believe this”, said the 19-year-old. Here are the drivers we like to win this race.
