Marco Rossi · F1 Correspondent
Kimi Antonelli wins a Belgian Grand Prix that was never simply handed to him. Between an early safety car period, a smart Ferrari counter under the virtual safety car, and a battle with Charles Leclerc that lasts until ten laps from the flag, the Mercedes driver stays cool and extends his championship lead, while his biggest rival George Russell is already in the gravel after just a few corners.
Pole position was a formality for Kimi Antonelli on Saturday, 0.317 seconds clear of the field, the biggest gap between P1 and P2 all season. But the real story of the afternoon in the Ardennes was written in the race itself, and it started in chaos.
Verstappen Briefly Ahead, Then It Escalates Behind the Ferraris
Max Verstappen got the better start and passed Antonelli, but couldn’t hold the pace. Still on lap one, the Italian took the lead back in the slipstream down the long Kemmel Straight, and moments later Charles Leclerc also went past the Red Bull into second. What looked like a controlled opening turned to chaos a few corners later. George Russell, who had initially dropped behind the Ferrari in the second Mercedes, tried a late lunge to get past Lewis Hamilton under braking. The Ferrari driver defended hard, contact followed, and Russell spun off and beached his car in the gravel. For the reigning championship runner-up, the race was over after just a handful of corners; Hamilton picked up a five-second time penalty. The safety car had to be deployed before the field had even settled into position.
Ferrari’s VSC Counter and Antonelli’s Late Response
After the restart, things looked settled for Antonelli at first, but the gap to Leclerc stubbornly hovered around one second. Ferrari used a later virtual safety car period for an early pit stop, briefly jumping the championship leader, a strategy that looked like a winner on paper. Antonelli didn’t let it rattle him. Ten laps from the flag, he made the decisive move on Leclerc and retook the lead for good, defending it to the checkered flag by 1.952 seconds. The sixth win of the season for the 20-year-old draws him level with Riccardo Patrese on the all-time list of Italian Grand Prix winners. Only Alberto Ascari, with 13 wins, now stands above him.
Behind the podium, where Verstappen’s third place secured Red Bull’s 300th podium finish, things stayed tense. Hamilton, despite his time penalty, still caught Oscar Piastri, who had collided with Leclerc early on and had to settle for fifth. Five laps from the flag, the Ferrari driver went around the outside at Les Combes, but his result is still provisional: the stewards are reviewing a potentially unsafe release from Hamilton’s pit box after the race, so the classification could still change.
Hadjar’s Strategy Masterclass, a Double Score for Audi, and the Championship Picture
Isack Hadjar, starting from the back row of the grid, showed with a near-perfect strategy how to make people forget a poor qualifying session, finishing sixth ahead of world champion Lando Norris, who closed to within 1.1 seconds in the closing laps but ran out of time for an attack. In the points, Audi enjoyed another strong day: Gabriel Bortoleto also benefited from the virtual safety car and finished eighth, ahead of Arvid Lindblad and Franco Colapinto. Nico Hülkenberg, the only German driver in the field, finished 13th without scoring, still waiting for his first result of the season.
In the standings, Antonelli is pulling clear with 204 points. Hamilton moves up to second on 159 points thanks to his fourth-place finish, passing Russell, while the Mercedes driver who retired from the race drops to third on 154. Russell’s gap to Antonelli is back to the full 50 points he had just clawed back before Spa.
