George Russell was crowned Champion of Belgium on the track on Sunday after finishing first in the Belgian Grand Prix, but this victory was short-lived as he was investigated post-race and saw his third career victory taken away due to a breach of the FIA’s technical regulations.

Consequently, Hamilton was promoted to become the race winner, following Russell’s disqualification, with McLaren’s Oscar Piastri taking second and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc taking the final podium position.

Qualifying

With the third and final practice session limited by rain and a heavy crash for Lance Stroll at the top of Eau Rouge, drivers only had a total of 13 minutes out of the hour-long session to get a feel for the circuit before heading into qualifying.

Max Verstappen managed to set the fastest time in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix with an unbeatable time of 1:53.159 in his Red Bull. However, the reigning World Champion would be due to start the race on Sunday from P11 as a result of a 10-place grid penalty for making a change to his cars power unit, meaning that Charles Leclerc inherited pole position.

Sergio Perez experienced a better performance this time round managing to finish P3 – after a string of bad qualifying and race sessions has put doubts on whether the Red Bull team will make a change to their driver line-up post-summer break – ahead of Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in P4.

The McLaren duo of Lando Norris and Hungarian-GP winner Oscar Piastri took fifth and sixth place respectively, ahead of Mercedes’ second car of George Russell following in seventh.

Carlos Sain took P8 for Ferrari, whilst fellow Spaniard Fernando Alonso took home P9 for the Aston Martin outfit, with Esteban Ocon rounding out the top-10 for Alpine.

Alex Albon narrowly missed out on a Q3 appearance by just 0.003s in the first of the Williams duo, meaning he will line up 11th on the grid, ahead of Pierre Gasly in the second Alpine in P12.

Daniel Ricciardo took 13th in the RB ahead of Kick Sauber’s Valterri Bottas and Lance Stroll – the Aston Martin team doing well to repair his car to allow him to participate after his late FP3 crash – in 15th place.

The Haas duo of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen both exited the session in Q1 in 16th and 17th respectively, whilst Yuki Tsunoda was also eliminated in 18th – although the RB driver was already set to start at the back of the grid after being handing a 60-place grid penalty for changing multiple elements to his engine.

Logan Sargeant finished in P19 for Williams, whilst the second Kick Sauber of Zhou Guanyu rounded out the grid for Sunday’s race in 20th place.

Race

Alongside the two grid penalties for Verstappen and Tsunoda for changes to elements to their engines, Zhou also received a three-place penalty for impeding Verstappen during Q1.

Leclerc made a good start off of the line to hold onto the lead, meanwhile, Hamilton also had a good start passing Perez on the approach to Turn 1. Norris, however dipped one of his wheels into the gravel and dropped down the order a couple of places.

Lap 3 saw a change in the race lead as Hamilton utilised DRS to pass Leclerc on the Kemmel Straight. At the other end of the grid, Zhou had suffered a loss of power and was making every effort to get his Kick Sauber back to the pit lane before the team were able to get the car going again.

A couple of laps along in the race, it seemed the repairs made to Zhou’s Sauber were in fact futile, as the Chinese driver was forced to pit once again and retire the car.

Hulkenberg was the first of the grid to pit for replacement tyres on Lap 8, with a multitude of other drivers including Albon, Ricciardo and Sargeant following him in on the following lap. Lap 10 saw the first of the front-runners making their pit stops, including Russell and Verstappen, with the two rejoining the track on the hard compound and in 12th and 14th  place respectively.

Carlos Sainz had a major moment on Lap 16, experiencing a trip into the gravel trap at Turn 14 whilst in the lead of the race, but he managed to make it back onto the track and continue in the race.

With seven laps remaining of the race, Russell was ahead of Mercedes teammate Lewis Hamilton by just under three seconds, whereas, further back Leclerc was facing mounting pressure from Verstappen and Norris in the fight for fourth place – after previously conceeding third place and the final podium position to Piastri earlier on.

Despite getting extremely close to being able to pass his teammate, Hamilton was unable to make a move, with Russell taking the chequered flag to take his third career win in Formula 1 a mere 0.526s ahead of the Seven-Time World Champion.

However, this victory was shunned by post-race drama as Russell’s car was found to be 1.5kg underweight and he was subsequently disqualified from the race results, meaning Hamilton would inherit the win and extend his record-breaking tally to 105 career victories.

Piastri took second place ahead of Leclerc who defended well against Verstappen and Norris, with the Red Bull and McLaren drivers taking fourth and fifth place respectively. Sainz finished in P6 ahead of Perez, Alonso and Esteban Ocon, with Daniel Riccardo rounding out the top-10.