The summer break is officially over with the Belgian Grand Prix kicking off a back-to-back race weekend, Spa-Francorchamps to Monza.
Spa-Francorchamps sparked a weekend filled with highs and, most notably, the lowest of lows. Saturday marked a dark day for motorsports, a day we collectively, fans and drivers, will all remember. Anthoine Hubert, a rising star, lost his life doing what he loved.
Anthoine Hubert was part of the up and coming young French drivers consisting of a number of drivers: Charles Leclerc, Pierre Gasly, Esteban Ocon and Dorian Boccolacci. It seemed as though it was just a matter of time before Anthoine was set to join the next generation of Formula 1 stars. But this is no longer the case.
Anthoine began karting at the tender age of just three, he karted against the likes of Max Verstappen and Charles Leclerc before moving onto racing cars. In Hubert's teenage years he secured the French Formula 4 Championship title, he proceeded to the European Formula 3 Championship where he secured multiple victories. In 2018, Anthoine took the GP3 Championship title, he will forever hold the title of reigning GP3 Champion after a change of name to Formula 2 at the end of 2018. Hubert graduated to Formula 2 at the end of last year, in his rookie year the Frenchman already managed to secure two victories, once in Monaco and again at his home race in France. At the beginning of this year, Anthoine managed to secure a position as a Renault F1 Junior driver, a role which could have seen him graduate into a Formula 1 driver.
Anthoine Hubert was a great talent and a bright star who died chasing a dream that was sparked at a young age. A dream that one of his best friends managed to achieve just one day after his tragic death, Charles Leclerc managed to take his maiden Grand Prix victory.
Charles Leclerc bagged the 'perfect' weekend, from pole position on Saturday to victory on Sunday. However, celebrations were rightly kept to a minimum, no champagne was sprayed on the podium out of respect to the tragedy just a day before. Once the chequered flag was waved, the Monegasque instantly dedicated his first win to Anthoine, a dear friend of Charles.
Leclerc's teammate, Sebastian Vettel, was a key part to Charles' win. Essentially, Sebastian sacrificed his own podium position to secure Charles the top step. Vettel finished fourth, just off the podium, the German had this to say, "For myself, I'm not happy, I didn't have the pace... It was a tough race, from then on I was serving the team. I tried to lose him (Lewis Hamilton) time to give a cushion to Charles."
Mattia Binotto, Ferrari Team Principle, praised both drivers, "It's not the best for his (Charles) very first victory, but it is important... First win for Charles, (I'm) pretty sure it won't be his last." Binotto continued with, "Sebastian played well as teammate which is very good for the teams spirits."
Mercedes managed to complete the podium with Lewis Hamilton in second place, whilst Valtteri Bottas finished third. Toto Wolff, Mercedes Team Principle, summed up their weekend with, "A very difficult weekend overshadowed of course by the terrible and sad accident of Anthoine Hubert, which almost makes the race result irrelevant... Sunday was good damage limitation for us finishing second and third, with a package that is not perfect for Spa." He went on to comment on Charles Leclerc's first win, "Charles was the right winner with Ferrari's package and his relationship with Anthoine, he deserved to win his first Grand Prix."
Red Bull had a weekend of two halves, for Max Verstappen his race was over on the first lap after suffering from an incident with Alfa Romeo's Kimi Raikkonen. Whilst, Alex Albon's debut race at Red Bull finished with a points finish in fifth place. Albon managed a fantastic recovery drive after starting from eighteenth on the Grid to finish in fifth, "I'm a bit mixed, everyone was so close together, we kind of had a DRS train. Whoever gets DRS pretty much always overtakes the guy in front."
McLaren suffered essentially a double DNF at Spa, Carlos Sainz' birthday Grand Prix was far from celebratory as he failed to even complete the first lap of the race. Whilst, Lando Norris' incident led him to race for 43 laps in fifth place before the car went into anti-stall after just crossing the finish line for the start of the 44th lap, as such, he managed to finish in eleventh rather than fully DNF. Lando Norris jokingly stated, "the thing that was giving me power, stopped."
Renault's race was another of two halves, Daniel Ricciardo failed to secure a points scoring position in 14th, however, he seemed to be on a race strategy that was frankly deemed to fail. Whilst Nico Hulkenberg began his weekend with the news that his race seat at Renault would not be his for 2020 after the return of Esteban Ocon, yet the Germans race was far better than his teammate after securing eighth position.
Toro Rosso managed to secure a double points finish with Daniil Kvyat in seventh place whilst, recently demoted, Pierre Gasly managed to gain the penultimate points in ninth. The Russian's recovery drive from nineteenth on the Grid to seventh place was outstanding after battling his way through the infamous 'DRS train' this weekend.
Haas failed to secure a single point at the Belgian Grand Prix with Kevin Magnussen finishing in twelfth, whilst his teammate, Romain Grosjean, crossed the line just one place behind in thirteenth.
Racing Point managed to secure a double points finish with Sergio Perez in sixth place, whilst Lance Stroll managed to pick up the final point with tenth place.
Kimi Raikkonen's race wasn't much better than his teammates, although Kimi managed to see the chequered flag, he did so as the penultimate finisher. Whereas, his teammate, Antonio Giovinazzi, unfortunately spun straight into the barriers on the forty third lap, just one lap before the finish.
Williams' George Russell finished in fifteenth, two places above his teammate, Robert Kubica finished in seventeenth, but due to three DNF's Kubica finished plum last.
Spa-Francorchamps was a weekend to forget for many, a dark day, but what should never be forgotten is the life of Antoine Hubert.
Comments