Hamilton one step closer to history
Play-off victory hands Hojgaard second tour title
LEWIS HAMILTON stormed to another regulation victory at the Belgian Grand Prix to extend his lead in his bid for a record-equalling seventh world championship.
The Mercedes driver led every lap from pole position to claim his fifth win of an increasingly one-sided Formula One campaign.
Valtteri Bottas took the chequered flag at SpaFrancorchamps 8.4 seconds behind his team-mate, with Red Bull driver Max Verstappen in third.
British driver George Russell emerged unscathed from a harrowing accident which saw his Williams hit by Antonio Giovinazzi’s wheel after he crashed out.
Ferrari completed one of their worst weekends in recent memory with Sebastian Vettel and Charles Leclerc finishing in 13th and 14th respectively.
Daniel Ricciardo was fourth for Renault ahead of teammate Esteban Ocon, with Red Bull’s Alexander Albon sixth and Lando Norris seventh for McLaren.
Hamilton will head to Ferrari’s home race at
Monza in a week’s time with a dominant 47-point championship lead after yet another crushing victory.
After racing to his 93rd career pole with a scintillating track record of the 4.3 miles that make up this iconic venue deep in the Ardennes, Hamilton will have known the greatest threat to his 89th career win would come on the opening lap.
Hamilton kept Bottas behind at the short run down to La Source before continuing to
DANISH teenager Rasmus Hojgaard defeated Justin Walters in a play-off at the ISPS Handa UK Championship to secure his second European Tour title in just his 15th start.
Two Scots finished in the top 10 with Craig Howie tied with Austria’s Bernd Wiesberger in fifth on 12 under par, and Callum Hill sharing ninth place with Andy Sullivan on 10 under.
Hojgaard won with a par on the second extra hole at The Belfry after he and overnight leader Walters had finished tied on 14 under par.
The 19-year-old fell two shots off the pace when he keep the Finn at arm’s length on the long run up through
Eau Rouge, along the Kemmel Straight and into Les Combes.
Instead of challenging for the lead, Bottas came under pressure from Verstappen but managed to retain second place.
Hamilton was 1.5 seconds clear of Bottas after the opening bogeyed the 12th, but birdied the 14th and 16th and holed from 10 feet for eagle on the 17th to complete a superb closing 65.
Walters, who began the day with a two-shot lead, ran up a triple-bogey seven on the eighth after hitting his tee shot out of bounds, but recovered superbly and birdied three of the last five holes to force a play-off.
The 39-year-old bravely holed from 10 feet for par on the first extra hole but was unable to repeat the feat from a similar distance at the second time of asking after carving his approach wide of the green from a fairway bunker.
Hojgaard only secured his European Tour card at the qualifying school in November 2019 and won a play-off in the lap. Bottas then appeared to ask for an extra engine mode to take the fight to Hamilton, one which was denied by the Mercedes pit wall.
“We have one push, no?” said Bottas. “We do – but we agreed not to use it against each other,” replied his race engineer Riccardo Musconi.
Mauritius Open the following month.
“It’s hard to describe,” Hojgaard said. “It’s obviously an amazing feeling to get the win. It’s happened really quick and I’m kind of lost for words.
“It was a tough day. I was a bit disappointed to make a bogey on 12 and a par on 15, but from there on my goal was just to give myself some good chances coming in and that shot on 17 was quite good and set up an eagle.
“I had 237 metres into the wind so was between a three wood and a hybrid. I went with hybrid trying to hit a low draw and it came out perfect to about 10 feet.”
Hojgaard had already secured his place in the upcoming US Open thanks to finishes of second, sixth and third on the
“I have never heard of that,” responded Bottas.
Unable to challenge Hamilton, the race settled into a steady rhythm before the Safety Car was released on the 10th lap.
Giovinazzi lost control of his Alfa Romeo on the exit of the 140mph Fagnes Chicane, crashing heavily into the wall.
UK Swing and is relishing making his major championship debut at Winged Foot.
“I’m very excited, those are the kind of tournaments you want to play when you are up against the best players in the world,” he added. “I am really looking forward to it.”
Walters, who was chasing his first European Tour title in his 227th start, said: “Obviously it’s disappointing but I’ve only got myself to blame really.
“I hit three bad tee shots in regulation which really cost me but after all that, to birdie three out of my last five holes is good too, so I’ve got to focus on that. It’s a major step forward from what I have been doing and I think the more I put myself in that situation I think I’ll come out on top eventually.”
Russell was following behind the Italian, and the front-right of his Williams was struck by Giovinazzi’s left-rear wheel which had come loose from his damaged car.
The Williams driver then hit the wall on the opposite side of the Spa-Francorchamps track in his attempts to avoid Giovinazzi’s machine. A breathless Russell reported over the team radio: “There was nowhere I could go, guys.”
The leaders headed into the pits for their sole tyre changes. Hamilton held off a napping Bottas at the restart on lap 14 and cruised to a win which moves him to within two of Michael Schumacher’s victory record.
Schumacher won 72 times for Ferrari but the German’s former team are in crisis ahead of their home race at Monza and their 1,000th Grand Prix at Mugello a week later.
Vettel swore at his team over the radio, urging them to bring him in for a second change of rubber, before taking the flag in 13th. It was even worse for Leclerc, who finished a place behind in 14th. Leclerc, who won here last year, had to stop for a second time as his Ferrari crew topped up pneumatic pressure on his engine.
Despite the dominant nature of the win, Hamilton had fears for the state of his tyres in the closing stages.
“It wasn’t the easiest of races,” he said. “I had a lock-up into Turn 5 which gave me a vibration on the tyre.
“It was a bit of a struggle. I was nervous we might have a scenario like Silverstone where I had the puncture, so I was nursing it to the end.
“I know it is not what everyone wants to see – a Mercedes at the front – but no matter how much success we have we just keep our heads down.”
Former world number one Martin Kaymer, whose last win was the second of his two major titles in the 2014 US Open, had held the outright lead after his third birdie of the day on the 13th.
However, after lipping out for an eagle and tapping in for birdie on the 15th, Kaymer dropped his only shot of the day on the par-five 17th and was unable to hole from 15 feet on the last to join the play-off.
“Unfortunately it was not meant to be today,” said Kaymer, who finished in a tie for third with France’s Benjamin Hebert.
“I was battling all day, made some good putts coming in but that mistake on 17, you can’t make that at the end of a round when you’re trying to win a tournament.”
DUHAN VAN DER MERWE’S direct ball-carrying has established the Edinburgh winger as the most potent strike-runner in the Guinness PRO14. He leads the league in “clean breaks” with 29 (second place Rhyno Smith of the Cheetahs has only 18), in defenders beaten with 67 (Smith has 49) and in metres gained with 870 (Smith has 742).
While fellow Edinburgh wide man Darcy Graham causes defenders all sorts of bother with his electrifying change of pace and a side-step like a shard of lightning, Van der Merwe’s effectiveness comes from his size, power and ability to bust tackles – and the South African is equally straight forward in an interview environment.
“It was stop-start-stop-start – it was one of those games where we had so many errors and stuff, it was just, honestly, a really s*** game,” was his frank assessment of Friday night’s 15-3 defeat to Glasgow Warriors at Murrayfield.
Such blunt clarity in thinking is no bad thing as Edinburgh enter the business end of the season, because it makes it easier to compartmentalise the setbacks and focus on the next task in hand, which happens to be arguably the biggest game in the club’s history. The capital side will take on Ulster in a home PRO14 play-off semi-final on Saturday and Van der Merwe is unequivocal that Friday’s set-back will have no bearing on how that game will go.
“There’s boys who got opportunities [on Friday], but that game is not going to determine what happens next week,” he said. “We’ll come in fresh on Monday ready to get stuck in against Ulster. What’s the point in reviewing this game? We’ve made 10 changes [from Edinburgh’s regular starting XV].”
The fact Van der Merwe played against Glasgow was a surprise. Given how important he has become to the side, there was a suspicion that he would be one of the star men wrapped in cotton wool for what was effectively a dead rubber, but the player and head coach Richard Cockerill took the decision that it was worth the risk if it meant gaining valuable match sharpness.
“I felt I needed a run,” said Van der Merwe. “I was blowing a bit in the first game [back after lockdown] and I just need to get minutes under my belt. You are always a bit rusty your first few games back, so I just want to get through that and back into form.”
Van der Merwe is straight to the point again when asked about his international prospects. The 25-year-old passed the residency qualification to play for Scotland during lockdown which means he is now a contender to be involved in the Autumn Test schedule. It is a delicate situation given that a large number of supporters are not comfortable with national teams being able to adopt players after three short years – but this latest in a long line of “Jock Boks” does not tip-toe round the subject.
“Obviously, since I have become Scottish qualified, things have changed for me personally because now I know I need to perform every single game, not just to be in the
Edinburgh starting XV but to get a chance to play for Scotland,” he said. “That’s definitely in the back of my head because I know I am competing against Blair [Kinghorn], Darcy [Graham], the Glasgow wingers, guys who have played before for Scotland, so I know there is a lot of competition there, so I just want to be performing at my best and hopefully get a shot.
“I do want to play for Scotland and I do want to give it a crack, but for now I am just really focused on performing for Edinburgh in the semi-finals and hopefully getting some silverware for the club – that would be amazing.
“I’m just glad to be back playing. At one point I thought they were just going to scrap the whole season and we were in such a good spot. I was in lockdown thinking: ‘Surely give us a shot – we’ve not been a position like this in however long Edinburgh has been a club.’ It is obviously exciting that we now have this opportunity. It is massive for the club and it is massive for the boys.
“There is a big buzz. The club has not been in the situation we are in now so we’ve got one shot or then maybe wait another year. So, it has to be now. We have to go out next week and beat Ulster.”