Scuderia Ferrari Spanish driver Carlos Sainz was the only one from the first two rows to start the Belgian Grand Prix at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on the soft tyres, while Sergio Perez, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, who lined up behind him, decided for the medium tyres in the first stint of the race.
Valtteri Bottas, Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc also opted to start on the soft tyres, with Yuki Tsunoda the only driver to opt for the hard compound. The rest of the grid went for medium tyres as strategy was once again key.
Carlos Sainz got the cleaner start and comfortably held the lead, but it was a terrible getaway for Sergio Perez: the Red Bull was overtaken by Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell! Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso made huge contact as they competed for second place, and it was the Brit who came out worse and was forced to retire from the race. Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc were already making progress, as the Red Bull man was up to eight while the Ferrari driver was up to 10th.
A few moments later, the safety car was deployed as Latifi hit Bottas and both cars ran off the track: that was the end of the race for Bottas on his birthday, while Fernando Alonso didn’t mince his words when it came to the incident between him and Hamilton: “Yeah, what an idiot! Closing the door from the outside. I mean, we had a mega start but this guy only knows how to drive and start in first.”
Unfortunately for Ferrari, Charles Leclerc had an issue on the front right. He had to pit to change tyres and came out on the medium tyres in P17.
After the restart, Carlos Sainz was still out in front with Perez second as the race resumed after the safety car, while Russell and Alonso are duking it out for third. After starting 14th, Max Verstappen was now up into 6th place on just lap six and then easily overtook Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso for P4. the Dutchman cruised past George Russell in third and was now hunting down team-mate Sergio Perez and leader Carlos Sainz.
Both Carlos Sainz and Max Verstappen complained about high degradation on their tyres just ten laps in. Two laps later, the Spanish driver was called by the Maranello team to change to medium tyres, as Max Verstappen took the the lead, passsing his Red Bull teammate. That wasn’t the greatest place to come out for Carlos Sainz, with quite a bit of traffic.
Max Verstappen was three seconds ahead of Sergio Perez and was determined to stay out as long as possible on the soft tyres to build that further. As a result, the Mexican was called in by his team which moves Carlos up to second: he managed to get out ahead of Russell and Charles. Unfortunately, the British driver used the DRS and managed to get himself in front of the Monegasque driver.
On lap 18, it was game over for Carlos, who had no way of defending against a much faster Red Bull RB18 car: the 2021 F1 world champion was rapidly catching Carlos and he engaged DRS to draft up behind the Ferrari and pass with ease. It’s a Red Bull one-two at the midway point of the race as Sergio Perez also eased past Carlos Sainz to move into second.
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On lap 26, Ferrari decided to bring in both drivers one after the other, with Carlos Sainz onto the hards and Charles Leclerc getting a fresh set of mediums: the Spaniard re-emerged in fourth behind Mercedes driver Russell, while the Monegasque was back out in seventh.
With new fresh tyres, Charles Leclerc was able to overtake the Alpine of Esteban Ocon and Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel, but there was no chance for the Monegasque driver to attempt to recover against George Russell, having to settle for fifth place. The Maranello team’s disappointing weekend in Spa seemed to be completed by Carlos Sainz losing third place to George Russell, on a Sunday in which the F1-75 car was clearly no match for Red Bull and was even slower than Mercedes in race pace. However, the Spaniard was able to manage the small advantage to Russell in the final five laps of the Belgian Grand Prix, to at least take a podium finish for the Italian side. Red Bull were simply too fast for Ferrari today, their pace was unbelievable on all compounds, as Max Verstappen secured an easy win, despite starting from P15.
With two laps to gom Charles Leclerc came into the pits to put on a set off soft tyres it seemed to go for the fastest lap of the race. However, he come out with Fernando Alonso right on his tail and the Spaniard overtook him, but Charles took advantage and regained fifth place on the last lap of the Belgian Grand Prix.
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