Due to the persistent heavy rain, the start of the race was gradually postponed. After two introductory laps behind the safety car on Wets, the red flag was drawn and the starting process was suspended.
The three-hour window for the race was temporarily suspended at 5:00 p.m. local time before there was another delay of over an hour.
The race officially continued at 6:17 p.m., the cars left the pit lane and the clock began to tick one hour before the end.
The cars completed two laps behind the safety car, signaling the start of the race before it was blocked again with a red flag and suspension. That was enough for half points and a race classification. At 18:44 the race was canceled, Lewis was P3 and Valtteri P12.
Today’s result marks the 10th podium for Lewis and the 15th for the Mercedes F1 Team at the Belgian Grand Prix. Lewis (202.5 points) leads the drivers’ standings three points ahead of Max Verstappen (199.5 points) with Valtteri (108 points) in fourth place. Mercedes (310.5 points) leads Red Bull (303 points) with 7.5 points in the constructors’ championship.
Lewis Hamilton: First of all, I’m really disappointed with the fans. It’s nobody’s fault, you can’t control the weather, but the fans were amazing today, stayed with us the whole time, waited for a possible race, kept their energy high and created the atmosphere. You were unfortunately robbed of a race today. I love racing in the rain, but today was different. You couldn’t see the car in front of us, there was aquaplaning, it was so, so tricky out there. It’s a shame because of course I wanted to race and I love this track too. I think it would have been a great race if it hadn’t rained so hard, but unfortunately it didn’t stop.
Valtteri Bottas: Of course it’s a great shame that we couldn’t drive and that there were a lot of dedicated fans waiting for us to start, but we couldn’t. They were still smiling through and through and in a good mood, so hats off to them. And of course for me it meant that with my penalty and poor qualifying outside of the top 10 on the grid, I couldn’t fight for points. There was quite a bit of stagnant water, but visibility was the main thing, especially on the straights. It was really bad and would have been too dangerous. Fortunately, it won’t be long before the next race, Zandvoort is a new track on the calendar, I’ve driven there in Formula 3 before, so I’m looking forward to it.
Toto Wolff: I really want to take my hat off to all the fans who were with us for the weekend in wet and cold weather. And especially this afternoon, waiting for hours for the race to start. It’s great to see their enthusiasm and passion, it’s exactly what the sport needs. We are all racing drivers and we want to race, but it just wasn’t possible today. It would have been too dangerous to let the drivers drive because they were completely blind. As far as the race result is concerned, we are of course not happy about the points awarded for a few laps behind the safety car, but if the regulations allow that, you have to get it up and running and continue. Now we’re looking forward to Zandvoort to hopefully score some big points and continue this battle for the championship.
Andrew Shovlin: Obviously we’re all frustrated coming here and not participating in the races and I’m sure the fans will feel that frustration even more. It’s also not a good feeling to lose ground in both championships. But in the end the conditions for racing were not safe. There was a lot of standing water and visibility was very poor. The race control decisions are difficult on days like today, but there was no rain break, so it was right not to continue the race. We will quickly shift our focus to Zandvoort and hopefully the weather will get better there!
View our Sunday gallery from Spa here.
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