2018 Belgian GP F1: Seb Vettel wins and cuts Lewis Hamilton's lead by 7 points

Despite not starting from pole position, Sebastian Vettel has won the 2018 Belgian GP in F1, securing a victory for Ferrari at the Belgian circuit, something that hadn’t happened since 2009. With the win, the German driver keeps his hopes alive in the world championship fight, as he cuts 7 points off Lewis Hamilton’s lead, and the next circuit, Monza, is also more favorable to his car than to the Mercedes.

That’s how things stood at Spa-Francorchamps, and that’s how the Ferrari had shown it in free practice. The rain and Hamilton’s skill allowed the Briton to take pole on Saturday afternoon, but in the race things would turn out differently. Vettel’s pace was much better, and once the German managed to overtake the British driver, at a moment when we saw up to four cars almost side by side heading into a corner, his race consisted of making no mistakes and securing the victory.

While Vettel was passing Hamilton, further back the pieces of several cars were being collected after a chaotic first corner. The German Hulkenberg collected Fernando Alonso, who, during his flight through the air, left Daniel Ricciardo without a wing (and the latter, in turn, punctured one of Kimi Raikkonen’s rear tyres) and almost decapitated Charles Leclerc. The halo will remain ugly, but it works, and that’s what matters most.

The carnage, logically, took Hulkenberg, Alonso and Leclerc out of the race, the most important thing being that all three drivers walked away safe and sound from the accident. Raikkonen pitted to change his punctured tyre, but something must have been wrong because he retired soon after. And Ricciardo was the one who kept going longest, starting last and nearly two laps down, circling for around thirty laps for no reason at all, in another manoeuvre that is hard to understand for Red Bull.

Verstappen saved the day for the Austrian team. In front of many Dutch fans in the stands, the young driver overtook Ocon and Pérez to take third place. The main threat to that position was going to be Valtteri Bottas, who started from 17th and naturally climbed many positions. However, the Finnish driver’s charge stalled in fourth place, ahead of the two Force India cars, which delivered the team’s best result of the season.

The final classification of the 2018 Belgian GP in F1 was as follows:

As we said, Vettel cuts 7 points off Hamilton in the overall standings: 231 points for the German against Mercedes the 214 points that Ferrari has. The next event, as we also mentioned, will be the 2018 Italian GP, on 31 August and 1 and 2 September, and the Monza circuit, not only because it is the home of the Italian team, is another where logic tells us the red cars will have the better pace and are the favourites.