The day Leclerc stamped his authority on Ferrari and Vettel

The 2019 Belgian Grand Prix might prove to be the moment Charles Leclerc decisively stamped his authority over team-mate Sebastian Vettel by claiming his first Formula 1 victory and making Ferrari 'his' team.

But perversely, it was also a race win that Leclerc owed partly to Vettel's contribution after a far more slender triumph than his qualifying supremacy suggested.

Leclerc drove superbly throughout the Spa weekend, in the race particularly given he had Lewis Hamilton bearing down on him in the tense closing laps. The tragic loss of Formula 2 ace Anthoine Hubert a day earlier made it even more impressive, and it was only right and proper that Leclerc dedicated this victory to his friend and rival.

Yet had Vettel not played his part over five crucial laps, Hamilton would surely have snatched victory despite Ferrari's straightline speed advantage.

When Hamilton closed to two seconds behind Vettel by the end lap 27 of the 44, he was just four seconds behind leader Leclerc. By the time he passed the Ferrari for second place on lap 32, that gap to the lead had grown to 6.6s.

On top of that, Hamilton then had to get his rear tyres, which he had described as "on fire" during his chase, back under control and build up the charge in the ERS battery before he could set after Leclerc in earnest.

All told, the Vettel roadblock cost Hamilton at least six seconds to Leclerc. Given the eventual winning margin of just under a second after a tense chase in the closing stages, this was decisive.

The scenario was the consequence of Vettel running an offset strategy by pitting six laps before Leclerc - a significant margin around the 4.352-mile track - having struggled during the first stint. While Leclerc led from pole position, Vettel was under pressure from Hamilton from the start, or rather the restart given there wasn't much racing before the safety car intervened.

This was the consequence of a clash between Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Alfa Romeo's Kimi Raikkonen at the first corner. Verstappen, not a threat in qualifying having been forced to run a Spec 2 Honda engine (two steps back from the latest specification used in team-mate Alex Albon's car on Friday before he too reverted to Spec 2), made a slow start and slipped behind Raikkonen.

He attempted to correct this by squeezing up the inside of the Alfa Romeo at La Source. While a legitimate move, it was a risky one and Raikkonen turned in from his middle line. The resulting collision briefly pitched Raikkonen into the air and gave both cars damage.

"We had a little wheelspin," said Verstappen. "After that I just tried to keep to the inside and Kimi just expected that he was completely in front of me. I braked a little later than the other two [Raikkonen and Sergio Perez's Racing Point], but it was still very early. He went on to do his normal line and I couldn't go anywhere."

Raikkonen admitted that "honestly, I didn't see him". It was a classic racing accident, but perhaps not the percentage play from Verstappen.

Both did continue, albeit having created the conditions for some further incident as Daniel Ricciardo was briefly pitched into the air after contact with Lance Stroll's Racing Point in the chain reaction behind. Raikkonen himself had just landed, so forced Ricciardo to ease off and tighten his line emerging from the corner, resulting in the Stroll clash.

But that Raikkonen/Verstappen collision was only the indirect cause of the safety car, as it wasn't deployed until the Red Bull piled into the wall at Eau Rouge. This was a result of a front-left toe link failure that manifested itself just as Raikkonen swooped around the outside of the very cautious Verstappen at Eau Rouge, resulting in the Red Bull clipping the Alfa on its way to the scene of the accident.

The first attempt to restart the race was abandoned without the safety car even leaving the track thanks to Carlos Sainz Jr parking his McLaren in the Bus Stop chicane runoff with an engine-related problem. Leclerc had dropped back from the safety car and was just winding up for the restart when the call was made, so was able to lead the field back up to it without safety car driver Bernd Maylander having to inconvenience himself by leaving the track.

Next time round, at the end of lap four, Leclerc held onto the lead despite not immediately dropping Vettel. But he did pull clear when Vettel locked up the front-right into La Source and ran wide, which allowed Hamilton to close on him. It proved to be too close and didn't allow Hamilton to carry a momentum advantage through Eau Rouge, which actually meant he was briefly threatened by team-mate Valtteri Bottas.

During the next phase of the race, Leclerc inched away from his team-mate. He was 1.6s clear at the end of the first full racing lap, then from laps six to 14 pulled an average of two tenths per lap on Vettel. The Ferraris were quick, prodigiously so on the straights, but the trimmed-out machines were asking a lot of the soft-compound Pirellis and Vettel couldn't shake off Hamilton.

With Leclerc out of range, Ferrari made the logical decision to pit Vettel so he was not vulnerable to an undercut attack from either Mercedes driver. This was a wise move, for the undercut proved to be more powerful than many had anticipated and protected Vettel's track position.

Had Ferrari allowed Mercedes to take the initiative with Hamilton, then it would have left Leclerc with no tailgunner. And Mercedes would have done so as Hamilton had originally been called in on the same lap, only for it to be cancelled when it was clear Vettel was heading in to cover him.

Vettel pitted at the end of lap 15 to switch to mediums but Leclerc did not follow him into the pits on the next lap, instead running a total of six laps longer. While the conventional strategy would be to pit the leader first to keep him out of range and bring the other car in the following lap, the race situation forced this divergence. It was not, as some suspected, a symptom of Ferrari favouring Vettel. In fact, had this not happened then Vettel would never have had the track position to play his crucial rear gunner role.

"We simply had to react to what Mercedes was doing at that time," said Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto. "If we could have gone longer with Seb we would have done it, so we were prepared to go as long as possible. But as soon as we saw Mercedes ready for the pit, we simply had to react.

"Charles got some advantage, some gap, so he stayed out without somehow putting at risk his track position on Hamilton. When it was the right time for him, we simply stopped."

Leclerc's advantage over Hamilton had peaked at just under five seconds at the end of lap 15, but by the time he was called in on lap 21 it was close to four. Crucially, Vettel's pace on the mediums meant that he jumped Leclerc when the leader pitted. Leclerc's disadvantage peaked at 5.2s during his out-lap.

Inevitably, Hamilton followed suit a lap later with Bottas, who was sat 4.5s behind his team-mate before the stops, pitting on lap 23. But Bottas wasn't the threat, that was Hamilton, who finished his out-lap 10.3s behind leader Vettel and 7.1s behind Leclerc. Leclerc caught and passed - or rather was let past by - Vettel in just over five laps, which came as something of a surprise.

"When I came out behind Sebastian, first I was not completely confident that the degradation was that much on the medium and that I could catch him," said Leclerc. "But after two or three laps there was quite a big pace delta, so then I was like, 'OK, I don't think we'll lose time together', which is exactly what we didn't do."

Leclerc was in trouble with three laps to go, despite having improved his tyre-management technique since the first half of 2019 and set-up changes to ameliorate the rear degradation that held back Ferrari on Friday

This brings us back to the crucial window: lap 28-32, when Vettel made his decisive intervention. Hamilton was faster, but Vettel's straightline speed advantage made him difficult to pass.

Throughout the chase, Hamilton asked for updates on Leclerc's pace and there was no doubt he had his eye on victory. He was pushing, too, as he proved by running deep at the chicane while on Vettel's tail.

The pass came on lap 32. Vettel defended on the run to Les Combes, but Hamilton had the advantage of the DRS and sailed around the outside of Vettel.

Now it was time to chase down Leclerc, while Vettel headed to the pits to slip to fourth behind Bottas. Vettel inevitably claimed fastest lap as he scythed half a second per lap out of the Mercedes driver over the final 10 laps but came up well short of third place.

Nobody else was a threat for the top four, with Red Bull debutant Albon a distant fifth following a bold, on-the-grass move on Perez on the Kemmel Straight after starting from 17th thanks to engine-change penalties. But that position should have gone to Lando Norris, who looked comfortable for 43 of the race's 44 laps only to suffer a late engine problem.

But these were only sideshows to the main event: Hamilton's chase of Leclerc. To the point when Hamilton took second, Leclerc had done a near-faultless job, with a brief trip across the Les Combes runoff during the first stint that didn't cost him any significant time the only negative. But now he was back in the same situation he faced in the Austrian GP; struggling with his tyres, in the lead with the laps counting down but with a quicker driver chasing him down.

Initially, it looked straightforward as he was able to edge away from Hamilton, with his advantage peaking at 7s at the end of lap 34 as Hamilton brought his car back into tyre and ERS balance. It held relatively steady for the next two laps, dropping to 6.569s, much to Hamilton's frustration.

But as the Mercedes pitwall pointed out to Hamilton, this was roughly the point where Vettel had slowed on his mediums. Leclerc was also starting to struggle, albeit not to the same extent.

From laps 37-39, Hamilton whittled the gap down to 5.1s, but then he really started to scythe into Leclerc's lead. The Ferrari driver's pace slipped from the 1m47s bracket that he had been in into the 1m48s, while Hamilton kept lapping quickly. On laps 40 and 41, his pace advantage became clear and he took an average of 1.169s per lap out of Leclerc to close to just 2.770s behind.

At that closing rate, Leclerc was in trouble even with a mere three laps to go despite having made improvements to his tyre-management technique since the first half of the season and set-up changes to ameliorate the rear degradation that held back Ferrari on the Friday long-runs.

Then, fate intervened in the form of a gaggle of traffic that limited Leclerc's losses on lap 42 to just half a second. While Leclerc cleared the backmarkers - Ricciardo and Haas duo Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean - without any significant time loss, Hamilton's lap time dropped by almost six tenths thanks to having to pass them all in the twistier middle sector in which he had been doing the real damage. That time ensured Leclerc stayed just out of range of Hamilton, whose charge was tempered a little by the need to look after the medium Pirellis, over the final two laps.

Antonio Giovinazzi crashing his Alfa Romeo out of ninth place while on his penultimate lap as the leaders were on their last time round might have helped Leclerc, but despite yellows at Pouhon it remained green for the run to the final chicane and Leclerc stayed just out of reach.

Leclerc, already denied a maiden victory twice, wouldn't have been blamed for cracking - especially given the similarities to the denouement of the Austrian GP, where he was chased down and passed by Verstappen in the closing stages. Many have fallen apart under that sort of pressure, or been distracted by fears of a repeat of the kind of engine problem that cost him in Bahrain. But not Leclerc.

"We grew up together in karting and to lose Anthoine was a big shock for me and for everyone. Hopefully in two or three weeks I will realise what happened today" Charles Leclerc

"What happened in Bahrain was never in my mind during the race," said Leclerc. "But Austria was a little bit different. Verstappen was catching very quickly, and I felt Lewis had quite a bit more pace than we had, especially on the medium [tyres]. I was very confident on the soft, but then on the medium Mercedes picked up some pace and it was a bit more difficult for us.

"I did not think about Austria but I could hear my engineer telling me the gaps and this gap was reduced every lap so I was trying to focus on the job, trying to cure the balance of the car. We had some problems with the rear tyres, I was trying to help the rear tyres as much as possible to arrive first and that's what we did."

To take your first grand prix victory under such pressure is no easy thing and Leclerc passed the test of his nerve with flying colours. Considering what happened the day before, that was remarkable.

"It's very difficult to enjoy this first win with the situation we had yesterday, but overall it's a dream come true," said Leclerc. "Since I was a child, I've been looking up to Formula 1, dreaming to be first a Formula 1 driver, which happened last year, and then driving for Ferrari this year and then the first win today.

"It's a good day, but losing Anthoine yesterday brings me back to 2005, my first ever French championship. It was him, Esteban [Ocon], Pierre [Gasly], myself and we were the four kids that were dreaming of Formula 1. We grew up together in karting and to lose him yesterday was a big shock for me and for everyone. Hopefully in two or three weeks I will realise what happened today."

Had the race been a couple of laps longer, had Ferrari not pitted Vettel when it did, had he then not held up Hamilton so effectively, had Leclerc made his stop a lap or two earlier, or had that traffic been distributed a little more favourably to Hamilton, the outcome of the race might have been different.

In a season where Ferrari has squandered so many chances, finally this was one where Binotto's team got every call spot on. What a way to break its 2019 duck, and for Leclerc to become a grand prix winner.

More significantly, perhaps he really has established himself as Ferrari's top dog with what is surely the first of many victories.