The 2019 "slump" behind Hamilton’s Belgian GP power

It's strange to think that the 2020 Belgian Grand Prix produced only the second Mercedes 1-2 of the Formula 1 season so far, given just how fast its W11 challenger is and how dominant the team's position has looked at times.

In previous events, Mercedes has lost the maximum result to poor starts (for Valtteri Bottas), to penalties (for Lewis Hamilton) and of course to the famous rubber-strewn ending to the first race at Silverstone.

This time, though, nothing got in its way, and in the intra-team battle of the Black Arrows it was Hamilton who again emerged triumphant. But there was something familiar about this weekend, which perhaps explained why Hamilton was so noticeably downbeat to have lost pole to Bottas at the 70th Anniversary GP in early August.

Hamilton's Spa pole lap was simply majestic. Whatever he asked of the W11, it did. It was an engaging piece of faultless, energetic driving. The result was his fifth pole of the season, which means he's matched his total from 21 races in 2019 in the opening seven of 2020. And that number is an important one to Hamilton.

Since Mercedes became F1's powerhouse squad in 2014, Hamilton's pole tally each season up to 2019 is: seven (team-mate Nico Rosberg bested him on 11 in 2014), 11, 12, 11 and 11. But last year he was down on five - level with Bottas and two behind Charles Leclerc (who was earning qualifying results Ferrari can only dream of in 2020).

"I was definitely under-performing in qualifying, which is usually a strength of mine," Hamilton explained after the race. "It was really about understanding these tyres and how I utilised them with my driving style.

"For this year, I've had to make a couple of adjustments and on top of that, with this car, they seem to work quite well. So now I'm back to being able to produce qualifying laps that I was able to do before last year, and on a more consistent basis.

"I mean last year was one of my best years, if not the best. But qualifying was all of a sudden... I had a bit of a slump."

Hamilton was magnanimous in defeat against the clock at the Austrian GP, but since then he has only been headed by his team-mate once - in the 70th Anniversary GP - where he had appeared visibly disappointed in the post-qualifying press conference

And so, alarmed by an unexpected weakness in a game that had produced six world titles (and nevertheless netted him last year's crown) Hamilton has gone about his business of ironing out that crease. He wants to right what he clearly sees as a wrong from 2019 and up his pole tally.

There's no power-potent Ferrari to worry about this time and Red Bull hasn't scored more than two poles in a year since 2013, so besting Bottas in qualifying is now Hamilton's significant target when it comes to perfecting a weekend.

PLUS: How Hamilton's qualifying record compares to Senna and Schumacher

He was magnanimous in defeat against the clock at the season opener, but since then he has only been headed by his team-mate once - that second event at Silverstone. In the post-qualifying press conference there, Hamilton had appeared visibly disappointed. Perhaps it was the loss of another precious pole.

He feels key work "in the background" - on the simulator and with the set-up, which must be done carefully to avoid impacting his race performances as "it's a fine line" - has made the difference.

Then there's the power of motivation when it comes to clinching those last extra performance pieces that make the difference between a good and a great lap.

It has been clear since the delayed season got underway that Hamilton is determined to make this championship count given his ongoing - and laudable - push for racial equality as part of the Black Lives Matter movement. But at Spa last weekend he had extra motivation, which was intrinsically linked with Hamilton's race and background, and that spurred him on to his 93rd F1 career pole.

"When I woke up and I got the news [about the death of actor Chadwick Boseman, who most famously portrayed the superhero Black Panther, an inspiration to Hamilton] from a friend who said, 'I'm crying writing this message to you about Chad'. And then reading the news I just broke down. I remember, just trying to pull it together and make sure I delivered on that day.

"Of course, you don't know if you're going to be able to deliver laps, you don't know if you're going to be distracted but when you find purpose, when you know what you're going for, what your target is - will, I think, can get you quite far."

And so, Hamilton clinched pole by 0.511 seconds, with a new Spa qualifying record. Target smashed to pieces. Bottas, who has seemingly noticed his team-mate's determination in qualifying, was on the backfoot.

"As you look at the numbers," Bottas later lamented, "he has had the upper hand this year in qualifying, which honestly pisses me off. But of course I'm trying and I do enjoy the challenge."

It may also seem strange to focus so much of a race report on qualifying, but the order of who would head the grid is absolutely key to the outcome of this particular event. So many times in recent years - even going back to the 2009 Belgian GP - has a car, often a Ferrari, capitalised on the race leader having to punch a hole through the air on the run up the Kemmel straight and slipstreamed to a vital advantage.

Arguably, leading off the line and through La Source and Eau Rouge leaves the leader exposed on the blast beyond Raidillon and the straight ahead. And this was clearly weighing on Hamilton as he called the start at Spa "very stressful".

Perhaps this was why he made a fractionally worse getaway than his team-mate when the lights went out. Although, arguably, the better launch meant Bottas was obliged to take to the outside and could not have a dive to the inside of the race-opening hairpin. Whatever, the next few metres were crucial to the race result.

Here, Hamilton "had a big snap out of Turn 1 and Valtteri was all over me". He also had to cope with the resulting wheelspin alongside a de-rating gearshift, which meant Bottas was indeed practically attached to his gearbox as they sped downhill towards Eau Rouge. But the leader reckoned that utter lack of a gap - which stemmed from what he called, harshly, a "mistake" - actually turned out to be a key advantage.

When the two Mercedes cars popped out onto the Kemmel straight, Bottas had dropped back from Hamilton's rear and by the end of the long blast up to Les Combes he was actually more under pressure from Max Verstappen's pursuing Red Bull. The reason was that the absence of space between the Mercedes cars meant Bottas had had to back off to avoid a collision.

"I really actually had to lift not to run into the back of him," he explained. "I tried to leave a bit of a gap to get good momentum off the tow, but today I was surprised how small the tow effect was."

The reason for this was because although the wind did not blow any hoped-for rain towards Spa, which would surely have enlivened what was a pretty tedious race overall, the direction it came from was crucial. Unlike in previous years, the wind was boosting the pack with a tailwind into Les Combes, which gave Hamilton another advantage and reduced the impact of the tow.

By the end of the first lap, Hamilton had a 1.416s lead over Bottas, which he marshalled carefully over the first stint. But like in the British GP three events ago, a spectacular accident changed the length of that opening stint and created the nature of the rest of the race. Although the crucial difference is that, while at Silverstone the extended second stint led to the dramatic tyre blowouts, at Spa it caused the leaders to drive conservatively in the closing stages - with those tyre failures firmly in mind.

"Controlling at the front and trying to build the gap on the restart to the car behind, because that's another opportunity for them to slipstream you, is not easy" Lewis Hamilton

On lap 10, Antonio Giovinazzi lost control of the rear of his Alfa Romeo accelerating out of Turn 13, as he chased Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari. The snap of oversteer caused Giovinazzi to wrestle the wheel in the opposite direction, and when the car came around it speared to the right and into the barriers.

The wrecked C39 then rebounded across the track, with a ripped rear wheel bouncing into the path of George Russell, who just didn't have enough time to react. The impact smashed his right-front suspension. Both cars ended up in the barriers on the left-hand side of the circuit and the safety car was called out so they could be recovered and the debris cleared.

Hamilton had pulled out a 1.848s lead by the start of lap 10 and Verstappen was 5.716s off the lead at this stage, frustrated with the grip he was getting from the medium tyres he and the Mercedes duo had qualified on. Bottas had also briefly sounded annoyed he could not use an overtake engine setting to attack his team-mate, but Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff put this down to a "miscommunication between him and some of the guys".

The safety car presented Red Bull with a chance as Mercedes had to double stack its cars when they were duly called in, which meant Verstappen very nearly beat Bottas back out once the top three had moved onto the hard tyres.

The race restarted ahead of lap 15, which presented another moment of danger for Hamilton. But he was able to get the jump on Bottas when he stepped on the gas coming towards the final corners and stormed clear of the threat on the Kemmel straight, again thanks to the tailwind.

"Controlling at the front and trying to build the gap on the restart to the car behind, because that's another opportunity for them to slipstream you, is not easy," explained Hamilton.

By the end of the 15th lap, Hamilton had restored his lead to 1.189s and the race settled down. It would either be a one-stop run to the flag, or the tyres would give up and the leaders would be forced to come in again. But although the wind again failed to bring any rain, it did push some cloud cover over Spa that brought the track temperature down over the race's second half.

Initially in this period, it looked as if Verstappen might be able to make a race of it - at least with Bottas. For the next 11 laps, he was able to stay around 1.5-1.9s adrift of the second Mercedes - a constant potential threat. But on laps 26 and 27, with Hamilton doing so first, the Mercedes cars briefly lifted their pace into the 1m47s, which Verstappen just couldn't match. He then lapped in the mid-high 1m48s, while Bottas stayed in the low-mid range of that bracket.

That meant Bottas's advantage grew to 6.539s by the end of lap 40, whereafter the two Mercedes joined Verstappen in the 1m49s and they all got slower to the flag, with the Dutchman frustrated at being held back by a long period of tyre management to get the hards to the end.

The gap to Renault's Daniel Ricciardo in fourth was such that Red Bull for once could not pit for a free pitstop to put pressure on Mercedes or chase the fastest lap point (which went to Ricciardo as his string of rapid times at the end concluded with the race's fastest tour on the last lap).

"It's a shame," said Verstappen. "It's such an amazing track and then you can't really push. So, it was pretty boring to be honest. I really enjoy driving here and honestly, we did 44 laps and I probably did 38 of them managing [tyres] a lot."

The gradually falling temperatures meant the leaders also had to work to keep the hards in their operating window. This caused them to gradually lose pace and led to the two Mercedes drivers having near-identical lock-ups and offs at the final corners in the closing stages.

Undeterred by his blip, Hamilton came home 8.448s clear of Bottas - having edged the second stint to the tune of 0.259s per lap over the last 30 tours - with Verstappen 7.007s further back. All three backed off considerably in the final three laps, which averted the risk of a puncture and let the brilliant, relentless Ricciardo close to 3.422s of an unlikely podium.

It says a lot about the motivation of a champion that Hamilton recognised his "slump" in 2019. Even if it didn't cost him the title, he is determined to make amends this year

"With the quite early safety car, we pushed the tyres very far," explained Wolff. "There wasn't any indication about failure or losing pressures, but we just slowly continued to lose temperature, and that is an indication that the level of rubber is diminishing.

"Obviously we still have Silverstone in our memories, and that's why we really took the pace out at the end, as did Max, in order to make sure that we were crossing the line without any problems."

Hamilton leaves what is usually the start the second half of an F1 season - in 2020 Spa isn't quite halfway - with a 47-point cushion. That's still over Verstappen, with Bottas a further three back in third.

It says a lot about the motivation of a champion that Hamilton recognised his "slump" in 2019. Even if it didn't cost him the title, he is determined to make amends this year. Armed with that points cushion and 5-2 advantage over Bottas in qualifying, it seems it must take something else catching him unawares to knock him off his stride in this most unusual and important of campaigns for Hamilton, who again reigned supreme at Spa.