Martin Brundle on the results of the Belgian Grand Prix

Former Formula 1 driver and Sky Sports F1 commentator Martin Brundle summarised the results of the Belgian Grand Prix.

This thrilling race is ultimately more of a flashy teaser than a thriller, but with a stunning ending.

Many places have new tarmac, and when I drove a few laps in the 1989 Arrows A11 for Sky F1 filming on Friday, I was struck by how incredibly clean and well-maintained the circuits were.

This is in line with my view that modern Formula 1 lacks character, just as modern football pitches, which are flat and well-maintained, with no trampled clay in front of the goal, lack that. Beautiful, but not authentic.

The new asphalt made the track faster; during Friday’s dry track practice the tyres wore out quickly and Saturday’s rain washed away a layer of used rubber, leaving teams with no data for comparison and the opportunity to optimise setups.

Lately, with so much data, analysis and modeling available, I rarely see well-informed people, and therefore the media, be so wrong in their predictions about how a race will end.

Friday’s practice and even Sunday morning’s Formula 2 race on dry asphalt indicated that tyre degradation during the Grand Prix would be very high.

They discussed the possible advantage of McLaren, they talked about how long it would take for Verstappen to recover from starting from eleventh after a penalty for changing the power unit. It was assumed that the best of the rest would be Ferrari, Mercedes and Sergio Perez, starting from the front row.

Verstappen was fantastic in the somewhat wet qualifying, confidently setting the fastest time on two new sets of intermediate tyres, saving another set. He also had a great Friday practice on the slicks.

Verstappen’s penalty meant Leclerc started from pole, Perez started the race second and Hamilton continued his revival by starting third. McLaren appeared to have reduced downforce ahead of the dry race, finishing fourth and fifth.

Despite his good results, Lando Norris seemed a little unhappy and I wondered if the events of the previous week would affect the race in Budapest.

Pole at Spa usually means you can be attacked on the long climb to the chicane at Turn 5 of Les Combes.

It’s funny to remember how in 1994, during briefings with my teammate Mika Hakkinen at McLaren, he kept talking about chicken when discussing the handling of the car. Eventually we asked what he meant by chicken and it turned out that in his Finnish English he meant chicane. And I’ve seen very few people navigate the ‘chicken’ faster than he did.

This time Leclerc retained the lead, while Norris’ left-rear tyre got stuck in the gravel exiting Turn 1 and Perez and Hamilton battled for second place.

Hang on, Hamilton overtakes Leclerc to take the lead on lap three – this wasn’t in the script! After a bad Friday, the Mercedes cars of Hamilton and Russell looked very good in the race.

Carlos Sainz in the second Ferrari did not qualify so well, he had nothing to lose after starting on Hard, and he was the last to make the first pit stop and was leading the race at that point, despite ending up in a gravel trap at Stavelot on the 20th lap.

Russell pitted on lap 10 and switched from Medium to Hard, the final time he pitted in the 44-lap race at Formula 1’s longest circuit.

Verstappen was cautious into the first corner and gradually collected his early and easy victims: Albon, Ocon and Alonso, who were in a race to be the best of the rest rather than in a battle with the championship leader.

But when Verstappen fell behind Norris and the leading group, the process stopped. Gone are the days when Red Bull was so dominant that it could win a race from any starting position.

Russell’s pit stop on lap 10 saw Hamilton, Piastri and Perez retire in 11th place, forcing Ferrari to change Leclerc’s tyres on lap 12. McLaren kept Norris out until 15th to give him fresh tyres for later in the race, but it became clear that the tyres were holding up much better than predicted. The leaders’ second pit stops ranged from lap 21 (Perez) to lap 30 (Piastri).

Russell’s pace was high and from his radio communications he was clearly thinking about a pit stop. He later said that he felt more and more grip on the track with each lap and that he had nothing to lose as he was expected to finish fifth, pit stop or not.

But the pace remained high, although his team-mate Hamilton was gaining three-quarters of a second per lap, now ahead of Piastri’s McLaren, who was overtaking them both.

As Hamilton closed in on Russell, it seemed inevitable that he would overtake him, on fresher tyres. But Russell found enough grip and enough defensive energy where it mattered to hold off Hamilton, who was sliding behind in the disrupted airflow.

Earlier I called the race a teaser because there were two groups of three drivers: Russell, Hamilton and Piastri, with Leclerc, Verstappen and Norris seven seconds behind. They were all fighting each other, but in the last laps nothing changed.

And here it was, Russell’s best Formula 1 victory to date, although Hamilton had an equally impressive race, holding on to the lead after each of his pit stops.

Mercedes unexpectedly achieved a winning double with their third win in four races. But it soon became clear that Russell’s car was 1.5kg lighter than the stipulated minimum of 798kg without fuel on board.

Teams must calculate the weight of the car at the end of the race, taking into account consumables – technical fluids, brake discs and pads, fender liners and a control rod. If something has clearly fallen off the machine, for example due to contact, it can be replaced with an identical part.

At Spa, due to the long lap, there is no return trip to the pits after the finish; the cars go to the pit lane exit to drive to the podium and the parc ferme.

I’ve always thought this omission was worth reviewing to please the fans, but this rule has been in place for a long time and ultimately prevents drivers from collecting bits of scrap rubber on their tires to make them heavier.

Charlie Whiting once told me that inspectors can, strictly speaking, ask for excess “bits” to be scraped off before weighing, but I don’t know if this happens. Russell ran 75% of the race on one set of tyres in a constant battle, without respite in the form of a safety car, physical or virtual.

The control rod at the bottom was also quite worn as we could clearly see them attacking the fast Eau Rouge and Blanchimont with full fuel tanks early in the race.

The impressive five-page inspection document released by the FIA ​​after the race says nothing about the wear on the rods, other than to say that Leclerc’s Ferrari was randomly selected for additional inspection, which I assume this one is included in.

All 19 finishing riders were checked for weight and many other aspects.

The scales were certified and Mercedes could only admit the error, which saw car number 63 disqualified.

There can be no tolerance in this matter. For example, by saying, “It’s only a pound lighter, that little thing doesn’t matter,” you leave the door open for “It’s only a pound lighter than Team X last week, when it was considered unimportant.”

Rules are rules.

According to my calculations, 1.5kg is worth about 2.5 seconds over the course of the race, and the top three pass in 1.173 seconds, but this is, to say the least, an oversimplification – there are many other factors to consider.

It is possible that Russell has adopted a surprise one-stop strategy, attacking with good grip and balance, using all four tyres to their full potential. Ironically, if it rained the car would be measured on the selected set of slicks, but there is no provision to swap one slick for another before weighing in.

So Lewis won his 105th Formula 1 race and drove superbly, even though the team and the teammate were in serious pain.

Red Bull face some tough decisions over the summer break, with Perez having dropped from the front row to a distant eighth and McLaren now just 42 points behind them in the Constructors’ Championship and closing fast.

I’m looking forward to the ten remaining races this season.