Hamilton train keeps rolling with pole at Spa; Bottas second fastest, Verstappen P3; Ferrari have met their Waterloo
Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton continued his seemingly unstoppable momentum in this truncated, COVID-affected 2020 season by taking a blistering pole for the Belgian Grand Prix during Saturday qualifying at the venerable Spa-Francorchamps circuit. Two weeks after a dominant win in the Spanish GP and having been victorious in four out fo the six contests so far, the English 6-time Champion and current points leader hustled his Silver Arrow around this beautiful and long 4.3 mile road course to the tune of 1:41.252, six-tenth quicker than his game but outclassed teammate, Valtteri Bottas. While that locked out the front row for Mercedes yet again and Bottas will line up alongside Hamilton in P2, the Finn simply doesn’t seem to be able to match Hamilton’s supreme pace in the W11 this year, particularly not in race trim. Once again, the Red Bull of Max Verstappen was the only other car and driver combo to even give Mercedes any hint of a fight on outright pace, as the talented Ducthman wheeled his car around for a lap good enough for P3 on the grid just .015 in arrears of Bottas. The RB16’s superior downforce, as well as Verstappen’s mastery in the wet, could throw the wild card into another easy Hamilton win if we get rain on Sunday, something that is always well within the realm of possibility here in the Ardennes forest.
Renault had an excellent qualifying effort that saw veteran Daniel Ricciardo vault himself all the way up to P4 and a starting spot in the second row beside his former Red Bull stablemate Verstappen. The second Renault of Esteban Ocon also came good with a P6 time. They will sandwich Vertsappen’s wingman Alexander Albon, who did decently to set the fifth fastest time. The McLaren of Carlos Sainz continued his recent superiority over his precocious teammate Lando Norris by out-qualifying the young Englishman for the second race weekend in a row, P7 to P10 in this instance. And while the two Racing Points of Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll easily made it into Q3 and qualified P8 and P9 respectively, the team was probably still disappointed and a little surprised by being blown off by both Renaults and one McLaren after their mini-Mercedes was normally the best of rest outside of the big three teams this season.
A sad note on Ferrari: after winning the last two Belgian GP with Sebastian Vettel in 2018 and Charles Leclerc in 2019 the same duo were unceremoniously bounced out in Q2 when Leclerc could achieve no better than the 13th fastest lap in a field of 15 and Vettel only the 14th. Simply put, the inability (or unwillingness) of the Scuderia to develop their cars and improve their pokey straight-line speed is one of the key frustrations of the 2020 season. The fact that the SF 1000 now appears to be getting slower each week and dropping further into the clutches of teams like Alpha Tauri and even Williams is nothing short of a travesty. The legendary team from Maranello appear to have given up on 2020 entirely and with the new spec Formula being delayed until 2022 this also bodes ill for their competitiveness next year, even assuming better team dynamics with the departure for the lame duck Vettel. Right now Carlos Sainz has got be wondering if his dream drive might not be looking like a nightmare and perhaps even rethinking his decision to leave what looks to be a fast-improving McLaren operation. With a now-confirmed eleven contests remaining it’s hard to see how Ferrari right this particular ship, always a bad thing for the sport. If they don’t score any points tomorrow, which is looking like a 50-50 proposition at best, the Italian press and the tifosi will be howling for blood just a week away from their home GP at Monza. Tomorrow in Belgium could truly be Ferrari’s Waterloo, though what such a nadir would mean with so many races still to go is anybody’s guess.
Top 10 qualifiers for the Belgian GP:
| POS | DRIVER | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:42.323 | 1:42.014 | 1:41.252 | |
| 2 | 1:42.534 | 1:42.126 | 1:41.763 | |
| 3 | 1:43.197 | 1:42.473 | 1:41.778 | |
| 4 | 1:43.309 | 1:42.487 | 1:42.061 | |
| 5 | 1:43.418 | 1:42.193 | 1:42.264 | |
| 6 | 1:43.505 | 1:42.534 | 1:42.396 | |
| 7 | 1:43.322 | 1:42.478 | 1:42.438 | |
| 8 | 1:43.349 | 1:42.670 | 1:42.532 | |
| 9 | 1:43.265 | 1:42.491 | 1:42.603 | |
| 10 | 1:43.514 | 1:42.722 | 1:42.657 |
Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.
Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN starting at 9AM Eastern here in the States. Hope to see you then to find out if either weather or competitors can do anything to slow down the Hamilton express!