1.Ferrari helps serve up a Leclerc win

At Spa-francorchamps the Monegasque national anthem rang out on a Formula 1 podium for the first time in world championship history. But this historic occasion was tinged with solemnity following the death of F2 driver Anthoine Hubert on Saturday, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc confessed that he was unable to fully enjoy his maiden F1 victory.

“On the one hand a dream I’ve had since I was a child has been realised,” he said, “but on the other it has been a very different weekend. I grew up with Anthoine and I want to dedicate my win to him.”

This race was significant not only for being Leclerc’s first in F1 – Ferrari’s first all season – but also because the Scuderia threw its weight behind Leclerc rather than Sebastian Vettel for the first time.

As unexpectedly high tyre degradation left the red cars vulnerable to attack from Mercedes despite being faster in a straight line, Ferrari’s strategists had to prioritise Leclerc. A scrappy performance in the final segment of qualifying had left Vettel 0.7s off his team-mate’s pole position time and only a hundredth of a second faster than third-placed Lewis Hamilton. Vettel blamed traffic for his lap but scrutiny of the onboard footage revealed the only car ahead (Hamilton’s Mercedes) was far enough clear to have obstructed him not one jot.

Leclerc converted pole into the race lead from the start while Hamilton got by Vettel at La Source, only to slip back to third again as Vettel blasted by up the Kemmel Straight. Almost immediately the race was neutralised owing to a first-corner shunt between Max Verstappen and Kimi Raikkonen, but when the safety car peeled off at the end of the fourth lap, Leclerc shot off again.

As Leclerc edged four seconds clear in the opening laps, Vettel struggled to keep Hamilton out of DRS range and was one of the earliest to pit for mediumcompound tyres, on lap 15.

That seemed marginal given the expected life of the rubber, and indeed Leclerc and Hamilton stayed out until laps 21 and 22.

Since they had slackened their pace slightly to preserve their tyres, and Vettel had pushed hard on his first laps out of the pits, Vettel emerged in the lead.

“Everything will be fine for the end of the race,” Leclerc was informed.

Vettel stood little chance of making his tyres last until the end of the race and in due course he was ordered to let Leclerc by with minimal time loss. This he did with 18 laps to run, and by lap 33 – just after he’d been passed by Hamilton – Vettel’s tyres were shot and he had to pit again, consigning himself to fourth behind Valtteri Bottas at the finish. But he had held Hamilton up enough to enable Leclerc to pull 7s clear with 11 laps remaining.

Hamilton closed in during the final laps but was stymied by having to lap the Haas cars at less advantageous places than Leclerc, and came up 0.9s short.