Christian Horner: "It was a tough race today. We finished 7 seconds behind the leader and over all we struggled. There were some positives though, Max has extended his lead over Lando and Checo brought home fastest lap. But it was a really tight race today. We didn't have a big offset of pace today over the others but, credit to George and Mercedes, I'm not sure they planned to do a one stop but it worked out well for them today. We have a lot to reflect on as we go into the summer break. We continue to lead in both the Constructors and Drivers Championships but convergence within the field means the gap is ever closing. We will regroup on Monday, as we always do before a break and look at how we can come back fighting for the second half of the season."
George Russell led home a one-two finish at the Belgian Grand Prix, before being disqualified post-race with his car below the minimum weight required. Lewis Hamilton therefore inherited the win, his 105th in his career, and his second of the season.
Starting P3 and P6 on the Medium tyre, both drivers made progress in the early stages with Lewis claiming the lead on lap 3. He ran a two-stop strategy from there, taking the Hard compound at both stops as he maintained his advantage over his fellow two stoppers. George, meanwhile, having stopped for the Hard tyre on lap nine, ultimately shifted to the one-stop strategy. This proved effective and, despite coming under pressure in the closing stages from Lewis, held on to cross the line in first.
Unfortunately, post-race checks found George's car to be 1.5 kg below the minimum weight required. He was therefore disqualified with Lewis promoted to first, claiming the team's third victory in the last four races.
Toto Wolff, Team Principal & CEO: We have to take our disqualification on the chin. We have clearly made a mistake and need to ensure we learn from it. We will go away, evaluate what happened and understand what went wrong. To lose a 1-2 is frustrating and we can only apologise to George who drove such a strong race. Lewis is of course promoted to P1; he was the fastest guy on the two-stop and is a deserving winner.
Despite the disqualification, there are many positives we can take from this weekend. We had a car that was the benchmark in today's race across two different strategies. Only a few months ago, that would have been inconceivable. We head into the summer break having won three of the past four races. We will look to come back after shutdown rejuvenated and with the aim of maintaining our positive trajectory.
{b}Andrew Shovlin, Trackside Engineering Director:{/b} It's really tough for George to have been disqualified from the win after such an impressive drive. He did a brilliant job to hang onto the tyres and defend to the finish. We don't yet understand why the car was underweight following the race but will investigate thoroughly to find the explanation. We expect that the loss of rubber from the one stop was a contributing factor, and we'll work to understand how it happened. We won't be making any excuses though. It is clearly not good enough and we need to make sure it doesn't happen again.
It was a relief to have Lewis in second to inherit the victory. He also drove a strong race and was the fastest two-stopping car out there today. We can be pleased with the car pace but overall, it's disappointing not to walk away with the 1-2. That is particularly true after such a good recovery from one of our most difficult Fridays, and following a race that was so well managed by the team. We'll learn from this and be back strong in Zandvoort after the summer break.
In the final race before the summer break, Scuderia Ferrari HP picked up 18 points courtesy of a fourth place for Charles Leclerc and a seventh for Carlos Sainz. It was a very close race, with the first six crossing the line in under 10 seconds, even with all 44 laps run under green flag conditions, with no Safety Cars. The numbers prove just how competitive Formula 1 is at the moment on a day when the team has closed the gap to the Constructors' championship leaders to 64 points. Charles and the team are still third in their respective standings, while Carlos is fifth.
On the Medium tyre, Charles kept the lead off the line but on lap 3, he had to give best to Lewis Hamilton. On the Hard tyre, Carlos passed Lando Norris to move up to sixth. After around ten laps or so, all the Medium runners made their first pit stops, with Charles now on Hards behind Hamilton, while Carlos stayed out until lap 20 to switch to Mediums. Leclerc's situation remained the same even after the second stop when once again he found himself behind Hamilton, but now he was third, because out in front was George Russell in the other Mercedes, who had switched to a one-stop race. Carlos could see he wasn't quick enough on the Medium so came in again for another set of Hard tyres and set off in pursuit of Sergio Perez in seventh place. He caught him without too much bother and passed him. Charles had a more exciting end to his race: he had to defend from Oscar Piastri, eventually relinquishing a podium place to the Australian on lap 36. Then he had to fend off Max Verstappen who never really looked like passing the Ferrari, so that Charles finished fourth.
There's one more week of work before the 14 day stoppage as set out in the regulations and so it's the right moment to look at the season so far. The last few races have not been that satisfactory, but compared to this time last year there are clear signs of progress. So far this season there have been two wins against zero from 2023, this year we have 10 podiums, against three last year, when the team was 312 points behind the leader as opposed to the current 64. Clearly, it's not enough and the team must continue to work hard to make the SF-24 more competitive. That's what the focus will be on so as to prepare as well as possible for the next part of the season starting with the Dutch and Italian Grands Prix.
Fred Vasseur - Team Principal: Overall, in terms of pure performance this race was okay for us even if we would have preferred to go into the summer break with a podium place. We were all surprised by the very low degradation of the Hard and conversely the very high deg on the Medium. This meant that George (Russell) had the best strategy and behind him everyone finished within ten seconds, something which is actually very good for the sport and the championship.
Our overall pace was good, and today we were able to finish ahead of the two Red Bulls and one McLaren, which in Spa-Francorchamps is not too bad. I think this weekend, on a potentially difficult track for us, we have found some more performance, but we are still lacking one or two tenths to be able to properly fight for the wins again. We will focus on this right tomorrow and after the break to increase our competitiveness for the coming races.
Andrea Stella - Team Principal: "We close the first part of the season with another tight and great race for Formula 1, with multiple cars in contention for the victory until the last lap. Today, tyre degradation was lower than projected, and overtaking was more difficult than anticipated, which made the race interesting in terms of an option for a one-stop strategy.
"For us, with the positions we lost at the start with Lando, and the fact that we didn't qualify ahead on the grid yesterday, it was always going to be a bit difficult to recover.
"Oscar drove a very determined race. I think it's quite impressive that he managed to be there at the end. The race was very clean, except for the last stop where he was long in the pit box, and we lost time. For Lando, it was even more difficult to recover, because he was in traffic for most of the race, and even if we stretched the first stint, there wasn't much to gain in having fresher tyres for the following part of the race.
"Overall, a very strong first part of the season for McLaren. We are even closer to the top in terms of Constructors' Championship, and we look forward to the second part of the season."
Mike Krack, Team Principal: "Two points from a one-stop strategy for Fernando and the team was the best we had today in Spa. We managed to make the one-stop strategy work for both drivers and this was the same for the race winner. Lance drove well but we weren't able to get him into a points scoring position. The strategy worked together with the pit stops today and we've secured a small reward. We are moving in the right direction going into the summer break but there is still a lot to improve on in the second half of the season. Thank you to the entire team at the track and back at Silverstone who deserve a well-earned rest and then to come back fully recharged for Zandvoort with lots of opportunities ahead."
Bruno Famin, Team Principal: "We end the first part of the season with an important point here in Spa. It was a tough race filled with interesting decisions on car set-up and strategy. From where we began this season to where we are now, clearly, we have made significant strides forwards. It has been a turbulent 2024 season so far but one where we have dug deep as a team and been able to rectify and improve drastically our car performance. We introduced a good upgrade here in Spa and there is more in the pipeline for the remainder of the year. We will continue to build, continue to learn and right now we are looking forward to a well-deserved summer shutdown."
Sven Smeets, Sporting Director: It was a difficult and disappointing afternoon. We started the race well with Alex gaining two places in the start and a good first stint on the Medium following Fernando. We decided to cover off some of the early stoppers and fitted the Medium again. Unfortunately, we struggled a bit in that second stint, and it became clear that some of our competitors had more pace than us. P13 was all that was in it today, however with the disqualification of George, this moves Alex to P12 and Logan to P17.
We'll use the summer shutdown to charge the batteries and come back stronger for Holland with some upgrades planned for the coming races following the break.
Laurent Mekies (Team Principal): "Overall, Daniel, Yuki, and the whole team performed quite strongly this weekend, with another race scoring points thanks to George's last minute penalty. We were P14 with Daniel after lap one, and we made it back to P10, having lost P9 only a couple of laps from the end. It was a very tough fight again at the top of that midfield group, and on a very fast track layout like Spa we were again in that fight and that's a good sign for the rest of the season"
"On Yuki's side, we knew coming into this race that our work plan would be different to usual, with Yuki having to start from the back. It was a near impossible mission to make it back to the points from there, and it is fair to say that we never quite managed to have a car that felt right for him this weekend.
"From day one, our aim has been to race as credible competitors at the top of the mid-field and this summer break is a logical time to look at where we stand. We enjoyed a very strong first half of the season in which we built up our performance race after race, scoring points at 10 out of 14 races. We are fighting hard for that P6 in the Constructors', against very strong competitors, and it's going to be a tough battle all the way to Abu Dhabi. Our groups in Faenza and in Bicester are getting stronger every day, and we look forward to the next battles.
"We now have a few days' work either side of the summer break, before tackling the last 10 races in several time zones, all of them back-to-backs or triple-headers. We actually won't have a standalone race now until Miami at the start of May next year! Proof that Formula 1 is enjoying huge worldwide popularity, and we are happy to be part of it. It is certainly a tough schedule, particularly for the mechanics, so the pause is well deserved after everyone has worked so hard to get our new Visa Cash App RB reality off to a really positive start."
KICK Sauber F1 Team leaves Spa-Francorchamps with mixed feelings after a Belgian Grand Prix that saw end-to-end action from lights to flag. Valtteri Bottas was in contention in the higher reaches of the midfield for most of the race, running tenth until the last quarter of the race; following his last pitstop, he eventually finished 16th (then promoted to 15th). On the other side of the garage, Zhou's strong start to the race was brought to an end by a technical issue that resulted in retirement on lap six.
The team heads into the summer break on the back of a more positive performance in both qualifying and the race, hoping to carry this momentum into the two-week shutdown and return strongly when the championship resumes in the Netherlands.
Alessandro Alunni Bravi, Team Representative: "Today's recognition goes to our pit crew, who achieved a remarkable 1.9-second pit stop with Valtteri on lap 36. This is a significant achievement for the team, especially after the issues we faced at the start of the season: it shows that we are now together with top teams for pit stop times. Having recovered from this challenging situation, we now need to focus on closing the gap in car performance through the effort of everyone, both trackside and back in Hinwil. For Zhou, the race was cut short early on: an issue on lap three, which we tried to fix remotely, ultimately forced us to retire the car on lap six. We'll need to investigate what seems to be an electrical issue; this is very unfortunate as he had had a strong start and was pleased with the car balance, in what could have been a positive race for him. With Valtteri, we fought in the midfield for most of the race; starting on medium tyres, we extended the stint on hards to attempt a one-stop strategy, similar to Alonso and Stroll. However, the pace was not enough to protect us against Stroll, Ricciardo and Ocon, so we pitted for a final stint on new mediums, pushing to close the gap to the Alpines, Williams, and Astons. Despite initial good laps in which the gap was shrinking, Valtteri struggled with rear tyre overheating, preventing him from getting closer to the cars ahead. Nevertheless, he had a strong race with overtakes on Hulkenberg and Tsunoda. This weekend, we've shown progress in qualifying and the race with Valtteri's upgraded car, but it's still not enough to fight for points. As we head into the summer break, it's important for both drivers and the team to recharge and return to Zandvoort with strong determination. The trajectory of our recent developments has been positive, and with another step forward, we can compete for points. This is our target and firm intention for the second part of the season."
MoneyGram Haas F1 Team finished with Kevin Magnussen 15th, and Nico Hulkenberg 19th, at the Belgian Grand Prix, Round 14 of the 2024 FIA Formula 1 World Championship, held Sunday at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.
Both Hulkenberg and Magnussen started the race on the Pirelli P Zero Yellow medium tires, Hulkenberg from 16th, and Magnussen from 17th, and maintained their positions through the course of the opening laps.
Magnussen prolonged his first stint until lap 18 before coming in for a set of hard tires and battled in the midfield while nursing his set of tires as one of the only drivers to manage a one-stop strategy, eventually classifying in 15th position.
Hulkenberg meanwhile adopted a two-stop strategy, coming in on lap seven for White hard tires, before taking on another set of mediums at his second stop on lap 21. Hulkenberg saw the checkered flag in 19th position.
Ayao Komatsu, Team Principal: "It was a tough race today, we didn't have the pace. On Kevin's side, he drove a really good race and we managed to do a one-stop strategy. Russell did a one-stop and managed to win the race compared to his teammate who two-stopped, so track evolution was actually pretty big and tire degradation was lower than expected. We reacted well converting Kevin's strategy from two stops to one, and he drove well. Nico struggled a lot more and we couldn't have done a one-stop strategy with him due to the degradation he had. We need to investigate why but all in all, it's not the way we want to finish the last race before the summer shutdown, but we have to look at the bigger picture. Across 14 races, we've scored 27 points and we're P7 in the Constructors' Championship - so we need to look at the positives."
The final result of one of the best races of the past few years wasn't decided until well after the chequered flag had been waved. On track, it ended with a Mercedes one-two, George Russell ahead of Lewis Hamilton, the pair joined on the podium by Oscar Piastri. However, post-race scrutineering revealed that the number 63 car was underweight as per the technical regulations and therefore George Russell was disqualified, the win going to his team-mate Hamilton, with Piastri now second and Charles Leclerc moving up to the third step of the podium. This is Hamilton's 105th win from 346 Grand Prix starts, while it's win number 128 for Mercedes, its third this season and a seventh in the Belgian Grand Prix.
On the grid, the vast majority of drivers had opted to start on the Medium. The only exceptions were Sainz and Zhou who chose the Hard and Ricciardo who preferred the Soft.
The two-stop was the most popular strategy, while the Hard was the compound that performed best, both in terms of degradation and performance. Zhou was the only driver to retire and of the remaining 19, five of them - in their finishing order -Russell, Alonso, Stroll, Magnussen and Tsunoda, only pitted once, going from the Medium to the Hard, with the first two of these finishing in the points places, respectively first and ninth.
The prize for the longest stint goes to Russell who did 34 laps on the Hard, while on his final stint, Hulkenberg went furthest (24 laps) on the Medium.
Mario Isola: "First of all, let me say this was a really exciting race. It's been quite a while since Formula 1 has put on such a show and it's unusual to see a race where the outcome is so uncertain, with the top three within just over a second of one another and the first six finishers, all of whom could legitimately claim to have aimed for the win or at least the podium, all finishing within under 10 seconds. It's a shame the race result had to be changed but, as even Mercedes agreed, the rule regarding weight is very clear.
"The second topic is strategy. Going into the race, we stated that a one-stop was not fast enough compared to a two-stop, but leaving aside Russell's disqualification, his performance would disprove that theory. For a preliminary explanation, at least in terms of tyre behaviour, there are some factors that stand out. First of all, today's track temperature was around 10 degrees higher than during FP2 and that probably contributed to very limited graining on the Hard, which on the other hand was very significant on the Mediums on a long stint. Furthermore, we can assume that the teams worked hard on defining car set-up to find the best compromise between a wet qualifying and a dry race and to try and protect the front axle, which was most prone to graining. A third element to consider is that many drivers made a point of looking after their Mediums very carefully, especially in the quickest corners.
"Two thirds of the race was a fascinating chess game, with moves and countermoves, especially among the leaders, but also further down the field and then it all came to life over the final 15 laps or so, with all the drivers beginning to push and fight for track position. It was a show that, as I said earlier, means we go into the summer break with a strong desire to see something similar in a few weeks' times in Zandvoort and indeed for the rest of the season."
Pirelli still has work to do in Formula 1 this summer. The Spa-Francorchamps circuit is hosting two days of testing aimed at 2025 tyre development. On track on Tuesday 30 and Wednesday 31 July will be the Aston Martin and Alpine teams, who will run Stoffel Vandoorne and Esteban Ocon respectively on both days. On the job sheet, finalising the new constructions and development of the hardest dry weather compounds in the range. If it happens to rain, then the focus will switch to assessing new solutions for the intermediate and extreme wet tyres.
