Formula 1 2019 Belgian Grand Prix

The Thai driver was having his first outing at Red Bull since his promotion from Toro Rosso, and started well down the order thanks to him taking a new Spec 4 Honda power unit for Friday practice.<br>But despite a low grid spot and limited experience of his new car, Albon put in a well judged performance to grab fifth place at the end.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>Albon had to "rewire brain" to drive ...

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Carlos Sainz's race was over before it really began after his Renault customer engine hit trouble on the formation lap, before stopping him shortly after the start.<br>Teammate Lando Norris looked set to take a well earned fifth spot before his engine lost power on the penultimate lap, stopping him at the start/finish line as he eventually dropped to 11th.<br>McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl ...

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Leclerc fended off a late Hamilton charge in Belgium on Sunday to finally take his first grand prix victory, 11 races after a Ferrari engine problem robbed him of a win on his second start for the team.<br>The 21-year-old joined Ferrari this season in only his second year in F1, but immediately started troubling four-time world champion teammate Sebastian Vettel and has now outqualified him in the ...

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Honda introduced its new Spec 4 engine in Friday practice at Spa in Alex Albon's Red Bull and the Toro Rosso of Daniil Kvyat.<br>However, while Kvyat continued with the new unit for the rest of the weekend, Albon joined teammate Max Verstappen in using an older than expected engine for qualifying and the race.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>Albon and Kvyat get Honda upgrade, grid penalties for ...

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Wolff conceded that Mercedes had no answer for Ferrari’s speed on the straights in Belgium, citing the way Sebastian Vettel regained second place from Lewis Hamilton after losing out at the start and going wide at La Source.<br>“If you would have given me second and third in Spa, I would have taken it before the race, because we know that our package compared to the Ferraris, with the ...

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Hubert passed away aged 22 during the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, after a crash in the F2 support race on Saturday.<br>While Gasly had been a few steps ahead of Hubert on the single-seater ladder all throughout his junior career, the two had been part of the French motorsport federation FFSA’s junior programme – and speaking after the Belgian GP, Gasly described Hubert as one of his closest ...

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Leclerc finally ended his wait for a first win in F1 after near-misses in Bahrain and Austria this year, and also clinched Ferrari's first victory of the season in the process.<br>Binotto was appointed team principal at the start of 2019 and Ferrari was a noticeably changed team as soon as pre-season started, but that has given way to a fundamental car performance deficit at several tracks and ...

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Verstappen made a poor start and both Raikkonen and Sergio Perez pulled ahead of him on the run to La Source.<br>The Dutchman took the inside line and made contact with the Alfa's right rear wheel, pitching Raikkonen onto the air, in an incident that was similar to one involving the same drivers in 2016.<br>The contact led to Verstappen's retirement immediately afterwards when suspension damage ...

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Hubert, who had been part of Renault's junior programme, perished in a crash in the F2 support race during F1's Spa-Francorchamps weekend, leading to an outpouring of grief and emotion all throughout the grand prix paddock.<br>Ricciardo, who drove his car to 11th place in the race after sustaining damage in the opening-lap incident, admitted he was glad to see the back of the Belgian GP.<br>"I'm ...

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Red Bull driver Albon was attacking Perez's Racing Point as they ran up the Kemmel Straight towards Les Combes on the last lap of the race.<br>As he approached the rear of his rival's car, Albon moved right to squeeze by, but in doing so he put the wheels on the right-hand side of this car on the grass.<br>Albon was able to get ahead of went on to finish fifth in his first race for Red ...

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Leclerc had started his karting career alongside Hubert, the Renault F1 junior who lost his life in a Formula 2 crash at Spa on Saturday.<br>After ending his wait for a maiden F1 win with a fine drive on Sunday, Leclerc immediately dedicated the victory to the 22-year-old Frenchman. <br>“On one hand I have got a dream I’ve had since being a child that has been realised,” said ...

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Twenty-one-year-old Leclerc, who became F1’s 108th different race winner, beats the likes of Fernando Alonso, Bruce McLaren and Lewis Hamilton on the all-time youngest winner list, which is led by Verstappen thanks to his win for Red Bull at Barcelona in 2016.<br>Leclerc becomes Ferrari’s youngest-ever race winner, ahead of Jacky Ickx.<br>Here is the all-time list (age in years, months ...

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Leclerc missed on victory in Bahrain because of an engine problem and Austria after a late fight with Max Verstappen, but suffered no such repeat as he finally converted position into victory at the third attempt.<br>Mercedes duo Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas completed the podium after Leclerc's Ferrari teammate Sebastian Vettel slipped back from second following tyre struggles and an extra ...

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In an emotional interview ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix the day after Hubert was killed in an F2 crash, Prost also revealed that the Renault team had only yesterday agreed a 2020 programme for the Renault junior driver.<br>Prost, who as Renault’s non-executive director had overseen Hubert’s recent progress, said that the tragedy was especially difficult for him to deal with because of how ...

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Verstappen's Honda engine consistently gone into an error mode when he tried to run it in high power qualifying trim, forcing him to do a reset.<br>He eventually qualified fifth, behind the four cars from Ferrari and Mercedes.<br>"All I can say from my side is the whole weekend we couldn't use our normal power modes," said the Dutchman.<br>"All the time I wanted to go up on power like we normally ...

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Ferrari driver Leclerc has admitted he has struggled in some races compared to his experienced teammate Sebastian Vettel, who stole a podium from him late on in the Hungarian GP.<br>Leclerc will line up on pole for the third time this season in Sunday's race at Spa after dominating qualifying.<br>"I've been analysing Hungary quite a lot," said Leclerc. "Actually, maybe it looked worse than it ...

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The Italian suffered a power unit failure in the closing stages of Q1 after setting a time that had been good enough to get him through to the second stage of qualifying.<br>He had been set to start 13th thanks to others dropping back through penalties.<br>But his team decided on Sunday morning that rather than fit him with an older specification power unit, it would take another latest ...

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Mercedes introduced an upgraded power unit at Spa, but it has already suffered two issues with both Sergio Perez at Racing Point and Robert Kubica at Williams hitting problems.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>Perez switches to older-spec Mercedes engine after failure<br>Mercedes set to run upgraded engine at Spa<br><br><br>The double trouble will be a cause for concern for Mercedes as all its power units ...

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Lando Norris trialled the latest idea (see sidebar below) during Friday free practice at Spa-Francorchamps, as the team conducted back-to-back tests as it looked for new ideas to improve the handling of its MCL34.<br>Although the team holds a comfortable 39-point advantage over Toro Rosso in the fight for fourth place in the constructors' championship, Sainz is clear that it must not think that it ...

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Hubert passed away after a crash in the Formula 2 championship race at Spa on Saturday, and the F2 race on Sunday has been cancelled.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>Anthoine Hubert: Obituary and tribute<br>Hamilton leads tributes to "hero" Hubert <br>F2 driver Hubert killed in Spa-Francorchamps crash<br><br><br>HWA is among the teams running stickers in honour of Hubert, reading "RIP Anthoine". The team ...

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Hubert died on Saturday from injuries sustained in a big accident early in the Belgian Grand Prix-supporting feature race.<br>Many tributes have been paid to Hubert, with F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton calling him a “hero”.<br>Renault has now issued its own statement in honour of Hubert, who became a fully-fledged Renault junior for this season after winning the 2018 GP3 title as an ...

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Leclerc had a comfortable advantage after the first runs at Spa and eventually qualified on pole by 0.7s after improving on his second attempt, while teammate Sebastian Vettel had to battle to join him on the front row.<br>After securing his third pole of the season, Leclerc said the improvement was down to changing strategy after his first run.<br>"At first I really targeted the perfect ...

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With drivers eager to stay close to the cars in front of them so they could benefit from a tow, as well as keep their tyres in the right operating window, a number of cars bunched up ahead of the first runs in Q3.<br>Hamilton nearly ran into the back of teammate Valtteri Bottas at one point as they slowed to avoid faster cars approaching them, while Bottas later locked up to avoid hitting Nico ...

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Latifi joined Williams as reserve driver for 2019 and has taken part in three Friday practice sessions so far. <br>He is fighting for the Formula 2 title and is on course qualify for a superlicence as he has won four races and is currently second in the standings.<br>Latifi believes that testing for Force India and Williams, plus his Friday practice outings, has made him ready for F1 in 2020 and ...

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Leclerc set the pace on the first runs in the Q3 top-10 shootout with a lap of 1m42.644s, which would have been enough to be sure of pole position.<br>But he improved to a 1m42.519s on his second run to make certain of starting from the front.<br>Vettel had to work hard to get a place on the front row, setting the third fastest time on the first run behind Mercedes driver Lewis ...

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With the Italian car manufacturer’s customer teams Haas and Alfa Romeo having given a debut outing for the third power unit of the year in Belgium this weekend, Ferrari has said it preferred to wait until Monza.<br>Speaking at Spa-Francorchamps on Saturday, Ferrari’s sporting director Laurent Mekies was clear that the power sensitivity of Monza – where an extra 10bhp is worth around 0.2 ...

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The world champion lost control of his car on the kerbs at the Fagnes chicanes just after the halfway point of FP3 and speared into the tyre barriers – badly smashing up the left-front side of the car.<br>Although the impact could have been enough to damage the chassis, which would force Hamilton to miss qualifying, the initial indications from Mercedes are that his monocoque is intact.<br>A ...

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Hamilton’s rare mistake triggered a red flag just after the halfway mark in Saturday’s one-hour session when, after setting a personal best first sector, he ploughed into the tyre barrier at the Fagnes chicane. <br>The Mercedes driver lost the rear of his car as he turned in on the outside kerb, then wrestled to catch the slide only to lose the rear again as he ran deeper into the run-off ...

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The two Renault works men, as well as McLaren’s Spanish driver, have all taken five-place grid drops for having run with an upgraded C-spec in Friday practice.<br>But despite the improvements in reliability and performance from the engine, the French car manufacturer and McLaren removed the power units and fitted their race cars with B-specs overnight.<br>Renault says that the change is not ...

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Sergey Sirotkin is currently scheduled to do the test as part of his deal to be the Enstone outfit’s reserve driver this year, although the team is yet to officially confirm that the Russian will take part.<br>Renault is one of three teams that has volunteered to help with the initial 18-inch testing, along with McLaren and Mercedes. All three have created mule cars based on 2018 chassis ...

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When Renault confirmed Ocon would join Daniel Ricciardo in its line-up for 2020, Hulkenberg said many factors had played a part and suspected the team’s slump in form this year tipped it “over the edge”.<br>"I’ve been here three years now," Hulkenberg explained. "2017 was good progress, 2018 was still good.<br>“This year we have a very tough year. And with the difficult year we’re ...

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The Milton Keynes-based team elected to make a mid-season driver swap after feeling that it could not afford to continue with Gasly, who had a disappointing first half to the campaign.<br>While the latest Red Bull driver shuffle has again prompted questions about whether the company’s young driver programme justifies the investment, Horner is adamant the strategy is right because it is  the ...

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The failure will be a cause for concern for Mercedes, as all six drivers from the works team, Racing Point and Williams took the new upgraded spec on Friday morning, comprising a V6, turbo and MGU-H.<br><br>Read Also:<br><br>Mercedes set to run upgraded engine at Spa<br><br><br>The HPP factory in Brixworth will investigate the cause of Perez's issue overnight.<br>Perez still had mileage on his ...

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Alex Albon has replaced Pierre Gasly at the team from this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix following Gasly’s struggles over the first part of the season.<br>Gasly has replaced Albon alongside Daniil Kvyat at Red Bull’s junior team Toro Rosso, with Red Bull explaining that has taken place to assess who it should pair Max Verstappen with next season.<br>Speaking for the first time since the ...

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While the Milton Keynes-based outfit appeared ready to give Gasly more time to recover after a disappointing first half to the campaign, it announced early in the summer break that the Frenchman was being moved to Toro Rosso, with his place taken by Alex Albon.<br>Horner said that momentum to make the move had been fuelled by the fact that Gasly's lack of results was costing Red Bull a decent shot ...

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