Belgium – Race 1: Charles Leclerc, King of Belgium

Author of his 7th pole position yesterday (his 8th if you don’t count his exclusion in Hungary), Charles Leclerc knew he was under threat from the two Dams drivers at the start. Ultimately, only one lined up on the grid as Nicholas Latifi was forced to retire before the start.

The takeoff of the Prema driver wasn’t the best of the season, and Oliver Rowland was able to match his pace. However, the La Source corner was quickly approaching, and Charles Leclerc had the best position, being on the inside. As they exited the corner, the two made slight contact, with the Monegasque’s left rear tire slightly damaging the Brit’s front wing, without any consequences for both drivers. The contact was so slight that the Monegasque didn’t even notice and was only informed by Oliver Rowland in the cool room. The latter was very fair about it: It was his corner, he was in front. It was probably an error in judgment on my part and not Charles’s fault at all.

Having done the hardest part, Charles Leclerc then focused on widening the gap to avoid being under threat from DRS on the very long Kemmel straight. The one-second gap was surpassed by the end of the first lap, and the Prema protégé remained out of reach for the rest of the race. The virtual safety car was briefly deployed to clear the carbon debris left on the track by some collisions in the pack, notably by Louis Deletraz with a broken front wing.

However, Oliver Rowland tried an alternative strategy to unsettle his title rival by changing tires as early as the 6th lap. This pushed him to the back of the pack but with enough gap between him and the drivers in front to fully benefit from the freshness of his tires.

However, it was not enough to close the gap on Charles Leclerc, who emerged from the pits on lap 10 with a margin of over six seconds over Renault’s protégé, who was battling with Norman Nato, who had not yet stopped. Thus, when on lap 16 the last of his opponents returned to the pits, Charles Leclerc held a comfortable lead of 14 seconds over second place, while Luca Ghiotto had occupied the final podium spot since the start of the race.

On the 18th lap, the black and white flag was waved at Antonio Fuoco. The Italian was still able to overtake Nyck de Vries’ Racing Engineering to climb to 6th position. Artem Markelov took advantage of his fresher tires to catch up to his Russian Time teammate, Luca Ghiotto, and snatch third place while Antonio Fuoco also got past Gustav Malja.

At the checkered flag, Charles Leclerc’s lead was abyssal as it reached 26 seconds after 25 laps of the race… Artem Markelov put on a spectacular comeback by moving from 9th on the grid to the second step of the podium, making a daring overtake in the very last corner. However, this maneuver was under investigation by the stewards. Nevertheless, after the race, even Oliver Rowland wasn’t crying foul as his tires were destroyed after his premature pit stop: “I pitted too early. I had a big drop in tire performance in the last two laps. I did everything I could, but it wasn’t enough to keep him behind me.”

Behind, Antonio Fuoco secures fifth place, behind Luca Ghiotto but ahead of the two Racing Engineering cars of Gustav Malja and Nyck de Vries, while Sette Camara will start from the reversed pole in tomorrow’s race. Roberto Mehri, returning to F2, takes ninth place while Norman Nato snatches the point for tenth place.

From our special correspondent at Spa-Francorchamps