From latest hirings to firings to the wet F1 tyres being declared pointless, here are 10 things we learned from the BelgianGP weekend:
One consequence of the miserable weather lingering around the Ardennes over the weekend was the gaping chasm left in the teams' data sets for the three compounds of slick tyre. Sure, they'd run with them in the sprint race on a drying track, but that's a very different scenario to a dry surface with a build-up of temperature. Degradation perhaps looked to be greater than expected, and DRS trains further down the order seemed to exacerbate that on some of the midfield runners.
There's a residual excess of drag in the Mercedes W14 that means it's not quite as potent in a straight line as the team would hope. Nonetheless, Hamilton managed to defend well from Verstappen's Red Bull until the creeping sense of inevitability consumed the early battle and the Dutchman got past. Although Hamilton attempted to catch Leclerc over the remaining laps in pursuit of a podium, the Ferrari was a little too quick for the Briton to catch.
"When we were in the mix of the other cars, it was starting to spiral negatively quite rapidly," explained team principal Andrea Stella."So we have to very frankly admit that while this configuration gave us an advantage in the previous days, today was starting to be a significant issue. And then we didn't help ourself in a way by trying to give Lando free air and fitting hard tyres.
“I thought the safety car was going to be in my favour, as it meant fewer laps to try and hold him behind," Piastri reflected of his sprint efforts."But I looked out of Turn 1 [La Source] and I feel like I got a decent restart. I looked at the top of Eau Rouge and he was basically on top of me already. I couldn't keep him behind on the straight.”