Hamilton's unexpected passenger and more McLaren pit stop drama - 5 things you might've missed from the Belgian GP
Hamilton's unexpected passenger and more McLaren pit stop drama - 5 things you might've missed from the Belgian GP
Not for the first time this season, a relatively unspectacular race fired into life in the closing stages with a hyper-tense battle for the win.
George Russell, Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri all finished within 1.2 seconds of each other at the front – but you'd have been forgiven for snoozing through the hour or so of cruising between the green and chequered flag action. After all, the most dramatic action came a full hour and a half after the race finished!
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Yes, Russell's car was found to be underweight when it was inspected after the race, dropping him from first to out of the standings completely as he was disqualified by the stewards.
So...two race wins in three for Hamilton? Yes? Who'd have predicted that?! Anyway, if you did have that mid-race Sunday snooze – or flipped over to the Olympics, the mountain biking was electric – you might've missed some things that won't show up in the headlines...
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Hamilton's unexpected passenger
It's not quite clear what was going on here, but the seven-time champ got on the radio very early on in the race to tell his team that there was 'something moving down by his legs'.
Whatever it was, it obviously didn't affect him too much – no repeat of Johnny Herbert's retirement at Monza in 1998 when a spanner got left in his cockpit and got tangled in his pedals, sending him spinning out – and we heard no more about it for the rest of the race.
Of course, if whatever it was had happened to weigh 1.5kg or more, Russell probably could've done with it being handed over...
READ MORE: Russell in EMOTIONAL outpour after Belgian GP disqualification
Leclerc and Ferrari disagree on strategy
Not to freak everyone's nut, but have you ever noticed that Ferrari's strategy calls aren't always exactly what their drivers want?
The infamous 'Plan F' aside, and ignoring the number of times that Charles Leclerc in particular has shouted at his engineers down the line, you'd be excused for wondering if the Scuderia engineers can do anything right.
Contrary to everyone's favourite F1 Twitter memes, Ferrari got it spot on in Belgium. But...it could've gone sideways. Going slightly longer than his rivals, the Monegasque told his team that if he was being undercut, he wanted to go long.
In what felt like an almost immediate response, he was told to come into the pits. Fortunately his team were right, and he came out ahead of all pitted drivers aside from then-undisputed leader Hamilton. What is this, upside-down world?
McLaren pit-stop priority harms Lando again?
Here's something that definitely didn't go under the radar in Hungary – McLaren fiddled around with their pit strategy in a way that meant Lando Norris had to hand the race lead back to Oscar Piastri, after a protracted radio conversation.
There was nothing so dramatic at Spa, but Norris might've got the harsh end of the stick again at the first round of pitstops.
As everyone dived into the pits, McLaren pitted their first driver on the road first, as is standard. Thanks to Norris' customary slow first lap that was Piastri, which left a window wide open for Max Verstappen to undercut the man who was both the driver again of him on the road and his closest challenger in the title race, a lead he never relinquished.
Oops?
READ MORE: FIA confirm PENALTY after Verstappen incident at Spa
Pitstop drama at McLaren 2.0
Speaking of McLaren pitstops...you know what, let's just let Ted Kravitz tell the tale of what happened at Piastri's stop when the Australian came into the box a bit hot.
"He absolutely boffed into the guy with the front jack and it was that man who actually absorbed all of the impact and minimised the effect.
"Yes he lost a second and a half, two seconds but great stopping work for that McLaren front jack man, he absolutely took the impact and the McLaren crew dealt really well with Oscar's little mistake."
2024's poisoned chalice
It's great to start on pole, isn't it? You get the best grid slot, you don't have to worry about anyone in front of you doing anything stupid you could get caught up in, and in theory you're fast enough that, well, you set the best time in qualifying!
Except...we're now on a six-race run of the polesitter not winning the race. Six races! That's loads!
If you're keeping track, that's Russell in Canada and Britain (won by Verstappen and Hamilton respectively), Norris in Spain and Hungary (won by Verstappen and Piastri), Verstappen in Austria (won by Russell) and Charles Leclerc – the last man to win from pole, in Monaco – this weekend in Belgium. And if you've forgotten who won that one, what are you doing here?
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F1 Race Calendar 2024
-
GP AUSTRALIA
22 - 24 Mar
Carlos Sainz
-
GP JAPAN
5 - 7 Apr
Max Verstappen
-
GP CHINA
19 - 21 Apr
Max Verstappen
-
GP USA
3 - 5 May
Lando Norris
-
GP ITALY
17 - 19 May
Max Verstappen
-
GP MONACO
24 - 26 May
Charles Leclerc
-
GP CANADA
7 - 9 Jun
Max Verstappen
-
GP SPAIN
21 - 23 Jun
Max Verstappen
-
GP AUSTRIA
28 - 30 Jun
George Russell
-
GP GREAT BRITAIN
5 - 7 Jul
Lewis Hamilton
-
GP HUNGARY
19 - 21 Jul
Oscar Piastri
-
GP BELGIUM
26 - 28 Jul
Lewis Hamilton
-
GP NETHERLANDS
23 - 25 Aug
Lando Norris
-
GP ITALY
30 Aug - 1 Sep
Charles Leclerc
- GP AZERBAIJAN 13 - 15 Sep
- GP SINGAPORE 20 - 22 Sep
- GP USA 18 - 20 Oct
- GP MEXICO 25 - 27 Oct
- GP BRAZIL 1 - 3 Nov
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F1 Standings
Drivers
- Oliver Bearman
- Charles Leclerc
- Carlos Sainz
- Lando Norris
- Oscar Piastri
- Pierre Gasly
- Esteban Ocon
- Sergio Pérez
- Max Verstappen
- Alexander Albon
- Franco Alejandro Colapinto
- Logan Sargeant
- Lewis Hamilton
- George Russell
- Nico Hülkenberg
- Kevin Magnussen
- Fernando Alonso
- Lance Stroll
- Valtteri Bottas
- Zhou Guanyu
- Daniel Ricciardo
- Yuki Tsunoda
Races
- Gulf Air Grand Prix of Bahrain 2024
- Saudi Arabian Grand Prix 2024
- Grand Prix of Australia 2024
- MSC Cruises Grand Prix of Japan 2024
- Grand Prix of China 2024
- Miami Grand Prix 2024
- Gran Premio dell'Emilia Romagna 2024
- Grand Prix of Monaco 2024
- AWS Grand Prix du Canada 2024
- Gran Premio de España 2024
- Grand Prix of Austria 2024
- Grand Prix of Great Britain 2024
- Grand Prix of Hungary 2024
- Grand Prix of Belgium 2024
- Heineken Dutch Grand Prix 2024
- Grand Prix of Italy 2024
- Grand Prix of Azerbaijan 2024
- Grand Prix of Singapore 2024
- Grand Prix of the United States 2024
- Gran Premio de la Ciudad de Mexico 2024
- Grande Prêmio de São Paulo 2024
- Heineken Silver Las Vegas Grand Prix 2024
- Qatar Grand Prix 2024
- Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi 2024
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