George Russell led a shock Mercedes one-two finish by holding off a fast-finishing Lewis Hamilton in a frenetic final stint at the Belgian Grand Prix.
Russell reached the checkered flag with a surprise one-stop strategy on a day almost every driver stopped twice, forcing Hamilton to chase him down in the final stint. It had been an inspired call by team and driver coming after the Briton made his tire change on lap 10 of 44, switching his mediums for hards.
It appeared to be the opening gambit of a standard two-stop race, but a 20-lap opening stint by Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz made clear that the white-walled rubber was more durable than expected.
Russell switched to management mode to eke out the rubber over what suddenly had to become a 34-lap closing stint knowing that Hamilton would be chasing him down with younger and significantly faster tires in the closing laps.
Hamilton had looked on course for victory in the opening stint. A perfect start from third drew him alongside second-place starter Sergio Perez, depriving him of the place down the Kemmel straight to slot into position behind pole-getter Charles Leclerc.
It gave him a clear run at the Ferrari driver on lap 3, making an easy pass before Les Combes to take the lead. Leclerc gamely tried to hang on, but the Monegasque fell out of DRS range three laps later, allowing Hamilton to take control of the race.
He pitted on lap 11 without losing the lead, but his second stop on lap 26 proved pivotal, surrendering the clear air of the race lead to cover a speculative Leclerc undercut and committing him to a fightback after having controlled the grand prix.
“Every stint I had tires left, but the team brought me in,” Hamilton said. “Unfortunate, but it’s one of those days.”
He rejoined from his second stop 9s behind Russell and closed gradually until on lap 40 he got within a second of the sister car. With no title on the line, Mercedes told both drivers they were free to race.
The result at first appeared a formality with Hamilton’s closing pace, but he lacked the same bite in the dirty air of the sister Mercedes, and his pursuit became markedly harder going. Worse, Oscar Piastri – who had risen to fourth on the first lap and passed Leclerc on pace early in the final stint – was capitalizing on the warring teammates, closing rapidly and threatening a three-way battle for the lead.
In the end, the lap count prevailed in favor of Mercedes and Russell. Fending off Hamilton’s DRS advances five times, he took the checkered flag by just 0.526s.
“Amazing,” an overjoyed Russell said. “I definitely didn’t predict this win this morning in our strategy meeting, but the car was feeling really awesome.
“The tires felt great, and I kept saying we could do the one stop. We rolled the dice, but it was only possible because the car was feeling really great. Well done to Lewis, because he really controlled that race, and if circumstances were slightly different, I’m sure he’d have got that victory.
“A one–two for the team is such an awesome result and such a great way to go into the break.”
Hamilton cut a frustrated figure post-race, but he praised the team for turning the weekend around after a disappointing Friday, after which some malfunctioning upgrades were removed from the car in pursuit of better pace.
“We had such a disaster on Friday,” he said. “The car was really nowhere. We made some changes. It was hard to say what it was going to feel like because of the wet yesterday, but the car was fantastic today.”
Piastri was McLaren’s standout performer to secure his fourth podium of the season, but the Australian lamented that his strategy took him too readily out of the valuable clear air of the lead, costing him time.
“Clean air was such a big difference today,” he said. “Once I had a little bit of clean air in the middle stint I picked up a lot of pace and managed to get a nice tire delta for the last stop, but clearly you didn’t need a tire delta, you needed to keep going, as George showed.
“We managed the race really well. Very happy with the result, and I don’t think we could’ve done too much more.”
Polesitter Leclerc finished third in a late defense of position ahead of Max Verstappen, whose recovery from 11th was quick in the opening stint before being slowed by a race-long duel with Lando Norris.
Norris held him up in the first stint before an undercut got the Dutchman ahead, but the McLaren was a constant thorn in his side, in the second two stint, distracting his focus and harrying to the flag, finishing just 0.677s behind.
Carlos Sainz’s long opening stint on the hard tire ultimately cost him a place to Norris, dropping him to seventh at the flag but earning him a tire offset to Perez, who sunk from the front row to eighth at the finish, making a late stop for softs for the bonus point for fastest lap.
Fernando Alonso was one of the few other drivers to make just one stop to cling to ninth ahead of Esteban Ocon, who demoted Daniel Ricciardo out of the points in the final laps.
Lance Stroll’s one-stop took him to 12th ahead of Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Kevin Magnussen, Valtteri Bottas, Yuki Tsunoda, Logan Sargeant and Nico Hulkenberg.
Zhou Guanyu was the race’s only retirement with a suspected hydraulics problem.
