Antonelli wins at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit

Kimi Antonelli won the Belgian Grand Prix at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, prevailing at the end of a duel with Charles Leclerc. The Ferrari driver finished second, ahead of Max Verstappen. All three started on the Medium compound before switching to the Hard.

Following George Russell’s retirement, Antonelli strengthened his lead in the championship battle over his closest rival and team-mate. Russell was also overtaken today by Lewis Hamilton, who finished the Grand Prix in fourth place and is now 45 points off the lead, five more than Russell.

All compounds were used today, with the majority of drivers opting to start on Mediums. Lando Norris instead lined up on Hards and did not pit until lap 30 to switch to the C3. However, he was not the driver to complete the most laps on the C2: Valtteri Bottas ran 31 laps on the white-marked tyre before finishing the race on Softs.

The C4, meanwhile, was used extensively by Carlos Sainz, who started from the back of the grid in an attempt to recover positions. The Williams driver completed 14 laps on the Soft before switching to the Hard.

DARIO MARRAFUSCHI – PIRELLI MOTORSPORT DIRECTOR

“All three compounds played a role in the Belgian Grand Prix strategies, with few variations between the teams and all broadly within the scenarios already anticipated yesterday.

“Tyre degradation was lower than in previous days because track temperatures, partly due to a few drops of rain, were cooler than those recorded earlier in the weekend. This allowed drivers to extend their stints.

“Only Ferrari opted to deviate slightly from the strategies of its direct rivals, extending the opening stint on Mediums while waiting for a neutralisation, which ultimately came. This enabled the team to save time during the pit stop and fit the Hard tyres to both drivers on the same lap.

“No one, with the exception of Sainz and Bottas, chose to start on Softs, a strategy which, in our view, could have offered some benefit to cars in the second half of the grid if combined with a slightly earlier stop to exploit the undercut. From a strategic standpoint, despite the presence of a Safety Car and a VSC, the race proved fairly straightforward.”

FORMULA 2

Rafael Câmara won the Feature Race in Belgium. With this victory, the Invicta driver claimed his second long race win of the season. Câmara started on the Supersoft compound before switching to Mediums. The second-placed driver, Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak, and third-placed Nikola Tsolov adopted the same strategy. Thanks to his third-place finish, the Bulgarian maintains the lead in the championship standings.

FORMULA 3

Ernesto Rivera secured his first Feature Race victory in the Formula 3 championship. The Mexican managed to keep Hiyu Yamakoshi behind him throughout the race at Spa-Francorchamps. Freddie Slater finished third. Thanks to his podium result, Slater has closed the gap in the title fight and now sits just one point behind championship leader Ugo Ugochukwu.

Founded in 1872, Pirelli is a company with deep Italian roots now recognised all over the world for its cutting-edge technology, capacity for innovation, and the quality of its products. Motorsport has always played an important part in Pirelli’s strategy, following the ‘race to road’ philosophy. The company has been engaged in motorsport for 119 years and today supplies tyres to more than 350 championships on both two and four wheels. Pirelli pays constant attention to the most efficient use of natural resources and energy, and will reach carbon neutrality by 2030.

Pirelli has been Global Tyre Partner of the FIA Formula 1 World Championship since 2011. The company also supplies championships including FIA Formula 2, FIA Formula 3, Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine and GT World Challenge, alongside numerous national series.