Momentum restored: Antonelli overcomes bad luck to reclaim control at the Belgian GP

Kimi Antonelli rather pushed the boat out to offer his father, Marco, a memorable 62nd birthday present: a pretty convincing pole position on Saturday afternoon at Spa-Francorchamps. The Italian teenager - and we've just two more races before this sobriquet becomes unavailable - had again found a vein of excellent form on his arrival to the Ardennes, sitting atop the times in two of the three practice sessions on his way to a sixth pole position of the year. Antonelli did not skimp on his father's gifts, however; a grand prix win would make for a perfect accompaniment should the idiom of "bad luck coming in threes" prove true. 

After five wins on the bounce, Antonelli's recent results had taken something of a nosedive - albeit almost entirely out of his control. A powertrain issue in Barcelona cost a second-place finish, as did the wheel-guard issue at Silverstone. Although the misreading of the yellow flags late on in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring might fall at his door, everyone and their dog expected this to be of the double-waved variety when Max Verstappen dumped his car into the wall. Still, the point is that Antonelli hadn't enjoyed quite as much fortune over the past three races, allowing George Russell to scythe the championship lead down to 25 points after the British Grand Prix.

All told, Antonelli enjoyed a pretty smooth run at Spa-Francorchamps, calling time on the string of misfortune across that previous trio of grand prix. Even when things didn't go to plan, the Mercedes driver had enough of a surplus in pace to cover every one of his bases. He had to work for the win, as Charles Leclerc took full advantage of a prolonged virtual safety car period to move into the lead, but the Ferrari lacked the requisite pace to defend or to fight back when Antonelli homed into range. 

Antonelli's fortunes were improved as his team-mate Russell, who had perhaps ridden his luck a touch to close the championship lead to the breadth of a grand prix win, found himself ensconced in the gravel at Turn 5. Russell felt a nibble from Lewis Hamilton as the two ran side-by-side at Les Combes, which languidly pitched the Silver Arrows off-course and out of the race. The Briton did not blame Hamilton for this (although the stewards felt differently and slapped Hamilton with a five-second penalty), but rather the scarcity of energy within his battery. Halfway through the Kemmel Straight, Russell had no energy left and was subsequently engulfed into the cut-and-thrust of the chasing pack. 

Per team boss Toto Wolff, this was not a problem that was exclusive to Russell - but extrapolating from his consistent issues over the weekend in which he was seemingly unable to harvest or deploy the same level of energy per lap as Antonelli, it seemed to hit him worse. The situation also cost Antonelli the lead to Verstappen for the briefest of spells, but the championship leader managed to recapture it on the run to Les Combes.

"When it comes to today, all Mercedes engines had a lack of energy out of Turn 1," Wolff explained. "So that wasn't only George, it affected him more than Kimi, but also Kimi had that issue to a certain degree. And that meant that he didn't come out at the end of the straight in P3, but P5.

Gravel concerns: another failure to score set Russell back another 25 points in the title fight

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"So [Russell] lost his two positions, and then obviously the accident with Lewis. And it's unfortunate, losing points for him, losing points in the constructors' championship, and it's like every weekend we have one car that doesn't finish."

The subsequent safety car allowed Antonelli some time to breathe in the lead, and the fact that Leclerc had trickled past Verstappen on the opening lap was also of some assistance. Ferrari expected the half-second arrears to the front pack in qualifying, but race pace had fallen more in the Prancing Horse's favour and allowed the team to play a factor throughout the narrative of the race. 

Verstappen had managed to reclaim second when the safety car period was over, but Leclerc and Hamilton kept on the Dutchman's tail in the second half of the stint once Oscar Piastri had been somewhat robustly dealt with. The stewards felt that the Turn 5 get-together involving Leclerc and Piastri was not worth penalising, although the McLaren was left with more than a few grazes in the wake of the clash. 

Although the Red Bull was now running second, Verstappen was losing time to Antonelli. A one-second gap grew slowly - a tenth here, a tenth there - to open up to more than two seconds by the 16th lap. Not wishing to lose any more time and with the hope of pulling the undercut lever, Verstappen called in on the following tour for the hard tyre. There was to be no vacillating on the border of a multi-stop strategy on this occasion; the mid-range selection of compounds necessitated a one-stop strategy, and this was the only opportunity to make an undercut work.

But Mercedes simply responded on the following lap, essentially preserving Antonelli's position over Verstappen to the tune of a net 2.5-second lead. Race over? Not quite. Over to you, Charles.

In comparison to the first, whistle-stop virtual safety car period, the second seemed to drag on for a bit longer; debris at Stavelot the overarching issue. It gave enough time for the Ferraris to pit, and the 10-second saving thus presented Leclerc with the net lead over Antonelli and Verstappen. Lando Norris, out of position as he was on the contra-strategy, had stayed out - although later admitted that taking the medium tyre under the VSC would have been a more beneficial strategy.

"Obviously, I was a bit annoyed, but you can’t predict these things," Antonelli mused, when recounting his view of Leclerc emerging ahead. "Sometimes it goes your way; other times it doesn’t. In Suzuka, I was very lucky with the safety car timing, and today it wasn’t on my side. But it’s how it goes, and that’s why, despite everything, you just try to make the best out of it and maximise the result."

Antonelli won out in the first-lap battle against Verstappen and Leclerc - but did battle with the latter after the pit stops

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Norris was shuffled aside two laps after the resumption of the race, dropping to second on lap 23. But the Briton showed his teeth in an effort to rescue his strategy, one largely undone by the timing of the VSC, and this led to Antonelli requiring a couple of additional laps to finally make the move on the McLaren driver. This was of considerable help to Leclerc, who'd managed to carve out a three-second lead over Antonelli in the meantime. It set up a near-repeat of the scenario at Silverstone, where Antonelli's pursuit was ultimately ended by the wheel hub issue that precluded his Mercedes from navigating the higher-speed corners around the circuit. 

Although Leclerc could count on good fortune in both races, this time it was not enough to cover off Antonelli's stronger race pace. The gap fell at a rate of 0.3s per lap, bringing Antonelli into overtake range with 10 laps remaining.

The difficulty here was that Antonelli was struggling to stick with the Ferrari through Turns 12 and 13, Les Fagnes, and this was helping Leclerc maintain enough of a gap through Blanchimont. But when Leclerc encountered a stubborn Valtteri Bottas on the exit of Stavelot, the Finn admitting to being caught out by the difference in closing speeds, Antonelli was presented with a gilt-edged chance to stay within Leclerc's wake and mount an assault on the following lap.

Leclerc felt that the hard tyres were starting to come to him by this point, having struggled to get the front end to bite, but it was arguably too little and too late. Antonelli peeled past with a run along the Kemmel Straight - heeding engineer Pete Bonnington's advice to stay on the inside at Turn 5, as Leclerc had been caught hanging his rivals on the outside line out to dry. Man, machine, and engineer combined, and Antonelli reclaimed the lead.

It's been a phenomenon this season that, even in the event of a pass, the car in front often struggles to pull away. Part of this is the potency of the slipstream; if you've ever seen someone in an electric car sitting in the draft of a truck on the motorway, you'll probably recognise that they're trying to make their battery charge last a few extra miles.

The reduced power requirement when running behind another driver does tend to equalise the battle somewhat and, when Leclerc stayed on Antonelli's tail, it seemed as though the Ferrari had a chance at springing a riposte into action.

But Antonelli did enough to keep Leclerc at arms' length in the crucial areas of the track, ultimately forcing the Monegasque to accept second-best. Whatever happens in Hungary, it is now certain that Antonelli will enter the summer break in the lead of the championship; Hamilton shuffles back into second thanks to Russell's failure to score, culminating in a 45-point gap at the summit. 

Uphill struggle: Antonelli brought an end to his recent run with a clean Spa weekend

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Not that Antonelli is paying much attention: "The momentum has always been there, despite what happened in the previous races. That’s why I just need to take it one weekend at a time, because you never know what can happen. I just need to maximise the performance every time and try to do my best whenever I get in the car. Then you see what the balance is at the end of the year. 

"But with these new cars and new regulations, there’s so much going on and so many unpredictable things that can happen. That’s why I just need to focus race by race, and then you’ll see at the end of the year."

The approach has served him well so far, demonstrating considerable maturity from someone who doesn't turn 20 until the end of August. But there's also a feeling that the points lead could be even more extensive, had Mercedes not dropped the ball quite so many times; it's a healthy enough advantage, but certainly nothing that can offer a feeling of security at this point. We're not even at the half-way point yet, after all...

Antonelli now sits 45 points clear of Hamilton in the championship standings

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