Race 14 - Belgian GP 2024 - Spa Francochamp

[The Black Knight]

Pity for George but without 1.5kg less he would have likely not won the race anyway. It was still a brilliant drive from him regardless and not too surprising given his gargantuan talent.

Mercedes messed up on strategy as well and never informed Lewis that a one stop was a possibility when pitting. It was pretty clear at this point that the Hard tire one stop was the correct strategy. Sainz was on 20 lap old tires and he was doing comparable laps to Hamilton one new tires and, over such a long track, it made no sense to stop a second time. This was pretty obvious to me from the comfort of my own seat at home and from George's cockpit. I see why they pitted Hamilton but it was also obvious they could take Verstappen and Leclerc out of the equation by not stopping again.

Great race though. Good to see a bit of competition in F1 and, once again, Max is looking bang average now that he doesn't have a huge car advantage.

A final word on Checo. Red Bull are going to lose the constructors championship with him in the car. He isn't anywhere near the level of Max Verstappen and, while he doesn't need to be, with all the teams so close in performance now, being 0.3-0.5 seconds behind your teammate is now half a grid rather than a two grid positions as was the case in the past. I can't see that taking a gamble on someone like Yuki Tsunoda or Liam Lawson will hurt Red Bull. It can't get any worse than Checo now and Perez has had more than enough time to improve his performance. To not have a win since April 2023 in the car he has is astounding. RBR must drop him and I don't think they have a choice anymore now.