Belgian Grand Prix driver ratings

44 Lewis Hamilton
Mercedes F1 W08

Start: 1st
Finish: 1st
Strategy: 2 stops (ultra-soft/soft/soft)

Rating: 10

Given the way Mercedes approached this race, sacrificing downforce in qualifying for the sake of race pace, Hamilton's pole lap was truly astounding.

On the part of the track he should have struggled through, he was fastest of all. The three-time champion drove a superb race under immense pressure and defended expertly when Vettel attacked at the restart. A true champion's drive.

77 Valtteri Bottas
Mercedes F1 W08

Start: 3rd
Finish: 5th
Strategy: 2 stops (ultra-soft/soft/soft)

Rating: 6

Bottas was "confused" by his lack of pace here. He was 0.475 seconds down on Hamilton through sector two in qualifying, struggling in every corner despite no discernible difference in set-up.

Apart from a decent middle stint on the soft tyre, Bottas had a weak race. Getting passed 'Ricardo Zonta-style' by two cars at once after the restart compounded a tough weekend.

3 Daniel Ricciardo
Red Bull-Renault RB13

Start: 6th
Finish: 3rd
Strategy: 2 stops (ultra-soft/super-soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 8

Ricciardo was well beaten by Verstappen in qualifying, after errors at Les Combes and Stavelot, but he recovered brilliantly.

He took the benefit of Verstappen's bad luck and Raikkonen's "pointless" penalty, but was clinically decisive passing Bottas after the restart, showed strong pace to get into the mix in the middle stint, and was quick enough to keep Raikkonen's Ferrari at bay too.

33 Max Verstappen
Red Bull-Renault RB13

Start: 5th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (ultra-soft/retired)

Rating: 9

Verstappen started the weekend on Red Bull's better, higher-downforce set-up, and put it to good use by trouncing Ricciardo and almost beating Raikkonen's Ferrari in qualifying. Dropping two tenths in sector one on his second Q3 run made the difference.

The teenager was pulling away from Ricciardo at two tenths per lap in the race when yet another "unbelievable" Renault engine failure spoiled Verstappen's party.

5 Sebastian Vettel
Ferrari SF70H

Start: 2nd
Finish: 2nd
Strategy: 2 stops (ultra-soft/soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 9

Vettel thanked Raikkonen for the tow that got him within 0.25s of Hamilton in qualifying, but he drove well enough to beat Bottas to the front row regardless.

The championship leader was at his relentless best in the race, pushing Hamilton hard all the way in a tense battle, but Vettel just couldn't find a way to crack Hamilton's imperious defences.

7 Kimi Raikkonen
Ferrari SF70H

Start: 4th
Finish: 4th
Strategy: 2 stops (ultra-soft/soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 7

Raikkonen was Ferrari's strongest contender until the final Q3 runs, so loses marks because he "fucked it up" at Turn 9. His race wasn't great either.

The safety car negated his stop/go penalty for ignoring yellow flags when Verstappen broke down, but Raikkonen's pace was also underwhelming in pursuit of Ricciardo at the end. His pass on Bottas was Hakkinen-esque, though.

11 Sergio Perez
Force India-Mercedes VJM10

Start: 8th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (ultra-soft/super-soft/super-soft/ultra-soft/retired)

Rating: 5

Perez has to take responsibility for throwing away points here. He made a poor start, inadvertently caused contact with his team-mate on the first run to Eau Rouge, was penalised for going off-track after passing Grosjean, then squeezed his team-mate again as they fought for position.

Jacques Villeneuve called it a "ridiculous" and "dirty" move, and it ruined Force India's race.

31 Esteban Ocon
Force India-Mercedes VJM10

Start: 9th
Finish: 9th
Strategy: 3 stops (ultra-soft/super-soft/super-soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 8

Ocon qualified right behind Perez again, but lost a likely seventh place finish when he tried to pass Perez down the hill out of La Source and the Force India pair collided.

Being super-critical, Ocon perhaps should have thought twice given the clear lack of trust between them, but in any case the team must now step in and sort things out once and for all.

18 Lance Stroll
Williams-Mercedes FW40

Start: 15th
Finish: 11th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 6

Stroll was outclassed by Massa here, despite getting way more practice in.

The rookie was well off Massa's pace in Q1, even before rear wing damage prevented a second run, and his race was a struggle too. He got jumped by Sainz early on and lacked pace and, while he passed Palmer's draggy Renault, he finished the race adrift of the points in a hobbled car.

19 Felipe Massa
Williams-Mercedes FW40

Start: 16th
Finish: 8th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 7

Massa's weekend lurched between disasters before ending on a high note.

He lost most of Friday to a silly FP1 crash, then copped a grid penalty for ignoring yellow flags in FP3, which rendered his valiant attempt to make Q2 meaningless.

But Massa made good ground early on and drove a decent race on Sunday, even if the final result was a little fortuitous.

2 Stoffel Vandoorne
McLaren-Honda MCL32

Start: 20th
Finish: 14th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/ultra-soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 7

The McLarens worked together to progress comfortably through Q1, where Vandoorne was slightly quicker than Alonso.

The Belgian started his home race at the back owing to a massive grid penalty for two engine changes and couldn't progress much owing to McLaren-Honda's massive straightline speed deficit.

Vandoorne drove a clean race at least, and made the flag, which, as he said, was "probably the only positive".

14 Fernando Alonso
McLaren-Honda MCL32

Start: 10th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (ultra-soft/soft/retired)

Rating: 8

Alonso was on the same tenth as the Force Indias in Q2, before Honda's ERS got confused by him taking Pouhon flat for the first time.

Chasing the Red Bulls through Eau Rouge on lap one was Alonso's only highlight. He plummeted from the top 10 as faster cars sailed by "without even activating the DRS" then parked it with 19 laps left.

26 Daniil Kvyat
Toro Rosso-Renault STR12

Start: 19th
Finish: 12th
Strategy: 2 stops (super-soft/ultra-soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 7

Kvyat's weekend was ruined by engine problems and he struggled to "know where to put my wheels" in qualifying thanks to the lack of track time - reacting to his car rather than anticipating its movements.

He was in touch with Sainz for much of the race, but kept getting stuck behind Stroll's Williams, then had to fight off Palmer towards the end.

55 Carlos Sainz Jr
Toro Rosso-Renault STR12

Start: 13th
Finish: 10th
Strategy: 2 stops (ultra-soft/soft/super-soft)

Rating: 8

Sainz dialled in immediately and produced a mega lap to go ninth in Q1. Matching it in Q2 would have beaten Magnussen's Haas, so it was slightly disappointing he couldn't do so.

Sainz recovered well from a tough start to score an unlikely point. He had a bit of help from others going awry, but also made his own luck with two crucial passes on Stroll.

8 Romain Grosjean
Haas-Ferrari VF-17

Start: 11th
Finish: 7th
Strategy: 2 stops (ultra-soft/soft/super-soft)

Rating: 8

Spa's rough asphalt and Pirelli's aggressive tyre choice alleviated Haas's chief weakness and Grosjean qualified strongly once the team added downforce to the car for Saturday.

The Frenchman felt Q3 was possible without losing downforce behind Vandoorne's pitting McLaren at the chicane. He recovered well from a tricky first lap in the race to bag a decent haul of points. A good weekend's work.

20 Kevin Magnussen
Haas-Ferrari VF-17

Start: 12th
Finish: 15th
Strategy: 3 stops (ultra-soft/soft/super-soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 6

Magnussen was slightly quicker than Grosjean initially in Q2, but overdrove at Les Combes and fried the tyres, so ended up adrift.

He struggled through the first stint, but compared well against Grosjean on the super-soft tyre. Magnussen lost out to Massa during the safety car pitstop phase, then threw points away by going off at the Bus Stop at the restart.

27 Nico Hulkenberg
Renault RS17

Start: 7th
Finish: 6th
Strategy: 2 stops (ultra-soft/soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 8

Hulkenberg was strangely off Palmer's pace at Spa, suspecting his car's aero was iffy having turned the set-up "upside down, left, right, upside down again and again".

He still qualified best of the rest after Palmer's Q3 misfortune, and on Sunday stayed strong through some "hairy" three-abreast racing with Ocon and Alonso following a poor start to easily finish best of the rest again.

30 Jolyon Palmer
Renault RS17

Start: 14th
Finish: 13th
Strategy: 2 stops (ultra-soft/soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 7

You must feel for Palmer, who was rapid until his gearbox broke in Q3 and a day later struggled to progress after the subsequent grid penalty.

His first stint on worn tyres was tough, as Massa and Sainz shuffled him back, and he then got bullied by Alonso and overtaken by Sainz (again), Stroll and Kvyat. In Palmer's words, it was a "horrible" race. Saturday's fine form rescues his score.

9 Marcus Ericsson
Sauber-Ferrari C36

Start: 17th
Finish: 16th
Strategy: 3 stops (super-soft/soft/soft/ultra-soft)

Rating: 8

Sauber was in a race of its own here given the deficit of its outdated Ferrari engine. Ericsson was generally its quickest driver at Spa, but any comparison is difficult given Wehrlein's technical problems.

Still this felt like a strong weekend from Ericsson, who wasn't too far off Vandoorne's pace (admittedly on an offset strategy) before picking up damage in the final stint.

94 Pascal Wehrlein
Sauber-Ferrari C36

Start: 18th
Finish: Retired
Strategy: (soft/retired)

Rating: N/A

It's impossible to rate Wehrlein's weekend fairly, given the problems he suffered. The German recovered from trouble in first practice on Friday to squeak ahead of Ericsson in FP3 - but Ericsson only did three laps in that session owing to his own technical issue.

Wehrlein suffered an engine problem in qualifying before broken suspension put him out two laps into the race.