5 things you might've missed from the Belgian GP: Hamilton's unexpected passenger and more McLaren pit stop drama

George Russell, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, Belgium, 2024 — Photo: © IMAGO

Belgian Grand Prix

5 things you might've missed from the Belgian GP: Hamilton's unexpected passenger and more McLaren pit stop drama

The race at Spa had its share of chaotic moments

Originally written by Chris Deeley. This version is a translation.

Monday 29 July 2024 18:00

Not for the first time this season, a relatively unspectacular race fired into life in the closing stages with a hyper-tense battle for the win.

George Russell, Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri all finished within 1.2 seconds of each other at the front – but you'd have been forgiven for snoozing through the hour or so of cruising between the green and chequered flag action. After all, the most dramatic action came a full hour and a half after the race finished!

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Yes, Russell's car was found to be underweight when it was inspected after the race, dropping him from first to out of the standings completely as he was disqualified by the stewards.

So...two race wins in three for Hamilton? Yes? Who'd have predicted that?! Anyway, if you did have that mid-race Sunday snooze – or flipped over to the Olympics, the mountain biking was electric – you might've missed some things that won't show up in the headlines...

George Russell had the perfect Sunday...until he didn't

Hamilton's unexpected passenger

Whatever it was, it obviously didn't affect him too much – no repeat of Johnny Herbert's retirement at Monza in 1998 when a spanner got left in his cockpit and got tangled in his pedals, sending him spinning out – and we heard no more about it for the rest of the race.

Of course, if whatever it was had happened to weigh 1.5kg or more, Russell probably could've done with it being handed over...

Leclerc and Ferrari disagree on strategy

Not to freak everyone's nut, but have you ever noticed that Ferrari's strategy calls aren't always exactly what their drivers want?

The infamous 'Plan F' aside, and ignoring the number of times that Charles Leclerc in particular has shouted at his engineers down the line, you'd be excused for wondering if the Scuderia engineers can do anything right.

Contrary to everyone's favourite F1 Twitter memes, Ferrari got it spot on in Belgium. But...it could've gone sideways. Going slightly longer than his rivals, the Monegasque told his team that if he was being undercut, he wanted to go long.

In what felt like an almost immediate response, he was told to come into the pits. Fortunately his team were right, and he came out ahead of all pitted drivers aside from then-undisputed leader Hamilton. What is this, upside-down world?

Charles Leclerc was on the receiving end of a good Ferrari call

McLaren pit-stop priority harms Lando again?

Here's something that definitely didn't go under the radar in Hungary – McLaren fiddled around with their pit strategy in a way that meant Lando Norris had to hand the race lead back to Oscar Piastri, after a protracted radio conversation.

There was nothing so dramatic at Spa, but Norris might've got the harsh end of the stick again at the first round of pitstops.

As everyone dived into the pits, McLaren pitted their first driver on the road first, as is standard. Thanks to Norris' customary slow first lap that was Piastri, which left a window wide open for Max Verstappen to undercut the man who was both the driver again of him on the road and his closest challenger in the title race, a lead he never relinquished.

Oops?

Pitstop drama at McLaren 2.0

Speaking of McLaren pitstops...you know what, let's just let Ted Kravitz tell the tale of what happened at Piastri's stop when the Australian came into the box a bit hot.

"He absolutely boffed into the guy with the front jack and it was that man who actually absorbed all of the impact and minimised the effect.

"Yes he lost a second and a half, two seconds but great stopping work for that McLaren front jack man, he absolutely took the impact and the McLaren crew dealt really well with Oscar's little mistake."

2024's poisoned chalice

It's great to start on pole, isn't it? You get the best grid slot, you don't have to worry about anyone in front of you doing anything stupid you could get caught up in, and in theory you're fast enough that, well, you set the best time in qualifying!

Except...we're now on a six-race run of the polesitter not winning the race. Six races! That's loads!

If you're keeping track, that's Russell in Canada and Britain (won by Verstappen and Hamilton respectively), Norris in Spain and Hungary (won by Verstappen and Piastri), Verstappen in Austria (won by Russell) and Charles Leclerc – the last man to win from pole, in Monaco – this weekend in Belgium. And if you've forgotten who won that one, what are you doing here?

Red Bull Lewis Hamilton Mercedes George Russell Oscar Piastri