Winners

Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen enjoyed the best weekend of his F1 career to date, showing levels of invincibi🗹lity.

Whether he🍰 started from 14th, 20th or the pit lane, everyone reckone🌄d Verstappen was going to win with ease, and he did.

His qualifying lap was scintillating, defeating his nearest chall꧑enger - Carlos Sainz - by💟 over 0.7s.

On race day, within just eight laps, Verstappen 🅰was into fourth and the win was therefore a near-certainty.

Verstappen is in the form of his life. 

Of course, he has the quickest car bu🥀t gre🌜at champions before him had the same.

Like in the days of Schumacher in the early 2000s, his rivals were just resigned to the fact that he ꦕwas going to win - the same is th☂e case with Verstappen

Esteban Ocon and Alpine

Alpine moved 20 points clear of McLaren 🍨in the constructors’ championship with a 16-point points haul at Spa.

Fernando Alonso finished fifth, while Esteban Ocon recovere𝓀d from 16th on the grid to finish seventh.

The Frenchman out-qualified his teammate (without a tow) but droppedও to the back of the grid due to engine penalties.

No doubt, Ocon was the quicker of the two Alpines this weekend and his reco🍨very was exemplary.

Good timing considering ma🤪ny are questioning whether Alpine will cope without Alonso in 2023.

Sebastian Vettel

Sebastian Vettel is showing no signs of slowing downꦐ with another impressive race day performance for Aston Martin.

Even though the four-time champion announced his retirement from F1 ahead of the Hungarian Grand Prix, the German has been performing spectacularly this se🉐ason.

He put a brave move on his teammate 🍬on the opening lap before pushing the Alpine of Alonso hard during the middle of the race.

Ano🍸ther fine drive and w🅺ell-deserved haul of points for Vettel at Spa.

Alex Albon

Alex Albon continues to flourish𝓰 since taking over from George Russell at the start of 2021.

The low downforce track characteristics of Spa played into♍ Williams’ hands but Albon made the mo🔯st of it.

While Albon qualified inside the🎶 top 10ꦅ on merit, it clearly didn’t have the pace to remain there in the race.

Albon hung onto 10th, benefitting from Williams’ straight-line speed advantage to finish in the points for just the third 🌺time this year.

Losers

Ferrari

It was another bad day for Ferrari and this time it wasn’t just down to stratꦐegy.

Ferrari simply didn’t have the pace to compete with 🐼Red Bull all weekend.

Even though Sainz started on pole (inherited thanks to Verstappen’s penalt🌳ies), he lost the lead within ܫ18 laps.

The Spaniard was even put𝓀 under pressure by George Russell in the latter stages, highlighting just how much Ferrari were strugglﷺing.

Charles Leclerc’s race wasn’t straightforward after being forced to stop under the Safety Car after a tear-off♋ from Verstappen’s helmet got stuck in his front brake duct.

Leclerc then lost out on fifth-place following h𓃲is failed attempt at the fastest lap for speeding in the pit♋ lane.

Another disastrous day.

Lewis Hamilton

A rare misꦓjudgement from Lewis Hamilton on the opening lap at Spa-Francorchamps forced him into an early retirement.

Hamilton collided with former McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso at Les Combes, 💦with the contact sending his Mercedes W13 airborne.

Given that Russell 🍒nearly finished on the podium, there’s no doubt that Hamilton would have had a great chance of doing so had he made it through Lap 1 unsch♕athed. 

McLaren

McLaren endured an awful weekend at Spa with both Lando Norris and Daniel💃 Ricciardo finishing outside of the points.

Norris’ engine penalties put him to the back of the grid, while on the other side of the garage, despite his good grid pos🌳ition, Ricciardo struggled for pace as he dropped behind Albon in the early phase of the race.

R🐎icciardo’s inability 🔯to re-pass Albon combined with a poor strategy from McLaren cost him a shot at the points.

With Alpine scoring points 🌳regularly now, it’s hard to see McLaren finishing fourth in the constructors’ championship this year.

Alfa Romeo & Haas (again)

Once again, Alfa Romeo and Haas complete our winners ♉and l🃏osers.

Think back t💟o the early part of the season, Kevin Magnussen and Valtteri Bottas finished fifth and sixth respectively in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix.

Haas had the slowest car on race 💛day, with Magnussen and Schumacher finish❀ing ahead of only Nicholas Latifi.

For Alfa Romeo, Bottas was caught out by a spinning Latifi, while Zhou Guanyu fough𓆉t hard but couldn’t make much progress as he finished 13th.