Sport e Salute

Antonelli Survives the Chaos at Spa, Extends His Lead

22 Luglio 2026

A cura di Andreas Grandi

Russell crashes on lap one. Hamilton moves up to second in the championship. Verstappen fights back for the podium. Audi Revolut keeps improving. Nobody saw Sunday's race in the Ardennes ending like this

Antonelli Survives the Chaos at Spa, Extends His Lead Kimi Antonelli won the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday. He held off Charles Leclerc late in the race, crossing the line 1.9 seconds ahead. Max Verstappen came in third. That’s the result. But it says almost nothing about what actually happened at Spa-Francorchamps, a track that likes to rewrite championship stories in a single lap.

That’s what happened on lap one. George Russell came into the weekend only 25 points behind his young teammate. He never got a real chance to fight for the win. On the Kemmel Straight his Mercedes lost power — the battery ran dry, at the worst possible moment. The pack swallowed him before Les Combes. He was side by side with Lewis Hamilton. Contact was unavoidable. Russell went into the gravel. Race over, before it had properly started. Afterward he said he felt numb about it. Hard to argue with that. Two retirements now, in a season that once looked like his best shot at a first title. His gap to Antonelli has grown to 50 points, right before the summer break.

Antonelli Survives the Chaos at Spa, Extends His Lead Hamilton’s afternoon was odd — a mix of penalty and promotion. He got a time penalty for the clash with Russell. Then finished fourth anyway. Later, a separate investigation opened, for an unsafe release in the pits, after he clipped one of his own mechanics. None of that stopped him moving up to second in the championship, ahead of Russell. Not the way he’d have planned it. But championships don’t care how it looks. Leclerc kept up his consistent form this year. A well-timed virtual safety car let him pit cheaply and grab the lead for a while, before Antonelli reeled him back in. Two Ferraris in the top four — Maranello will take that, even if a few of the choices on the pit wall raised eyebrows.

Verstappen’s third place had a strange asterisk on it. He actually led at the start, passing Antonelli right away. Then the Mercedes came back at him on the run to Kemmel, and he slipped down the order. Afterward he was honest: he credited teammate Isack Hadjar’s tow in Saturday qualifying just for getting him onto the front row. Small margins. That’s Red Bull’s season so far — mostly playing catch-up. Further down the order, Audi Revolut had something to smile about. Gabriel Bortoleto brought the car home eighth, his second straight points finish. A modest number on paper. But real progress, for a team still learning new regulations against far more experienced rivals. Nico Hülkenberg, his more seasoned teammate, scored nothing this time. That alone tells you how tight the midfield has become.

Antonelli Survives the Chaos at Spa, Extends His Lead Worth pausing here, on why Sunday went the way it did. The sport itself looks different this year. DRS is gone. In its place: what teams call overtake mode, a short burst of extra electric power a trailing driver can call up once he’s within one second of the car ahead. He can spend it in one go, or spread it across a lap. Cars also shift their wings automatically now — low drag on the straights, more downforce through the corners — no thumb on a button needed, the way DRS used to work. Overtaking used to be close to automatic. Not anymore. Now it’s something to ration, to spend at the right moment. That changes where and when passes actually happen. Spa, with its long straights and demanding corners, was always going to test that balance. Sunday’s race was decided as much by a well-timed pit stop under a virtual safety car as by raw speed. For now, at least, that suggests the new rules reward patience over aggression.

It won’t stay confined to Spa, either. Mercedes still looks quickest most weekends. But Antonelli’s cushion owes as much to Russell’s bad luck as to outright pace, and Toto Wolff knows it. Ferrari’s speed looks real, not lucky — two cars in the top four, at a track that doesn’t usually suit them. That’s not an accident. Still, the team needs to sort out the pit-lane mistakes that keep making headlines for the wrong reasons. Red Bull remains a step behind, hunting for the last few tenths that separate a real title fight from just following the pack. Audi Revolut, meanwhile, keeps adding points, race after race. Unglamorous work. But exactly what a first-year team needs, before it can dream bigger.

Antonelli Survives the Chaos at Spa, Extends His Lead Formula 1 doesn’t stop for long. The paddock packs up and heads straight to Hungary, the last round before the summer break. Plenty of teams left the Ardennes with things to fix.