Lewis Hamilton was handed a five-second penalty at the Belgian Grand Prix after stewards ruled he was predominantly at fault for a first-lap collision with George Russell that sent the Mercedes driver out of the race. The contact at Spa-Francorchamps on the opening lap left Russell spun into the gravel and beached there, bringing out the safety car while marshals cleared the track. Hamilton later said he could not avoid the clash, describing it as a racing incident and saying he had been put in an impossible position.

Russell said the crash was only part of the problem, pointing to Mercedes’ lack of straight-line speed and a power issue that left him vulnerable before the contact. He said he had been “swallowed up down the straight” and suggested the car’s weakness had cost him as he tried to retake fourth place. Russell, who was running second in the standings before the race and trailing teammate Kimi Antonelli by 25 points, told Sky Sports he had “no words” and said the result was a major blow to his title hopes.

The contact was reported as occurring around the end of the Kemmel Straight and into the Les Combes chicane, with Hamilton’s Ferrari striking Russell’s Mercedes and ending Russell’s race. Hamilton initially inherited fourth place under investigation before the penalty was confirmed. Commentator Martin Brundle said he would not have punished Hamilton and viewed the clash as a racing incident, though he noted the stewards likely had more data and camera angles. Russell climbed out unhurt but scored no points and was described as tearful in the media pen.

Max Verstappen is set to work with Tom Hart as his race engineer for some races in 2026 as Red Bull prepares for Gianpiero Lambiase’s move to McLaren. Red Bull has confirmed Hart will replace Lambiase when he departs, with the team planning ahead for an exit that is not due to come before 2028.

Hart has been Verstappen’s performance engineer since 2020 and was originally expected to leave Red Bull for Williams to become Alex Albon’s race engineer. Red Bull and Williams bosses Laurent Mekies and James Vowles reached an agreement that kept Hart at Red Bull in Milton Keynes. The team has also enlisted Yuki Tsunoda to help prepare Verstappen’s next race engineer.

Lambiase has worked with Verstappen for the past decade and is set to join McLaren as chief racing officer, or a similar head of racing role, from 2028. He is expected to spend an extended period on gardening leave because of Formula 1’s secrecy rules, although his exact departure date has not been announced. The change has raised questions about Verstappen’s future, with speculation linking him to McLaren, while his manager has said he intends to see out his Red Bull contract and Verstappen has said Red Bull is already looking for the best replacement.

McLaren’s Belgian Grand Prix weekend was shaped by an unresolved inconsistency in electrical energy deployment from its latest Mercedes power unit. On Friday, Oscar Piastri lost track time after a hydraulic leak forced a gearbox change, while technical director Neil Houldey said the team’s new low-downforce rear wing was working as expected and McLaren would keep refining energy deployment and reliability ahead of the next sessions. Piastri ended FP2 sixth after his delay, and Lando Norris was second in the same session before taking third in qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps.

Andrea Stella said qualifying was a step forward, but small differences in power unit operation were still enough to affect pace at the power-sensitive circuit. He said Piastri’s deficit to Norris was mainly caused by straight-line energy use on the run from Stavelot to the Bus Stop Chicane during the derating phase, likely because the battery was not harvested optimally in the previous sector. Stella added that McLaren’s access to Mercedes simulation tools had improved preparation and performance, which he viewed as a positive sign heading into future races, with upgrades due from Hungary onward. Norris will start 13th after a 10-place penalty for a fourth power electronics unit, while Piastri’s Q3 was also disrupted when he ran wide and picked up gravel. Stella said Spa’s overtaking chances could still give both drivers opportunities to recover in Sunday’s race.

Mercedes was still searching for an explanation for George Russell’s straight-line speed deficit after qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, where teammate Kimi Antonelli took pole and Russell qualified fourth before being promoted to third on the grid by Lando Norris’ penalty. Russell said he was losing about four tenths of a second on the straights in qualifying, after losing as much as eight tenths on Friday, and the gap left him more than half a second behind Antonelli on the timing sheets.

Russell said the issue had been present since Silverstone and remained unresolved despite attempts to change his driving style. He said Mercedes had ruled out his driving style and the brakes as the cause, and the team said both drivers were running the same specification of car and power unit. Mercedes described it as a serious problem and said it was urgently investigating, with Russell saying the repeated loss of speed on Spa’s long straights made the car feel “super frustrating.”

Telemetry analysis pointed to Antonelli’s advantage coming mostly in the final sector, with the biggest speed difference on the straight between Turns 16 and 17, where deployment strategy and battery charging appeared to create a large gap. Mercedes focused on poor deployment into the final chicane, and Andrea Stella suggested the difference may be tied to how the drivers were operating the power unit. Mercedes has not found a definitive answer, while Russell said he hoped the team could find a fix before the Budapest race week.

Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz sharply criticized F1’s 2026 regulations after qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps, saying the new cars are strong in the corners but too slow on the straights. Both drivers pointed to an about 50 km/h loss in the final sector when the battery ran out, with the problem particularly evident at Spa.

Sainz said the rules should never have been accepted and were “not good enough,” arguing that no one is enjoying qualifying as much as they did last year and that the Spa performance drop showed the regulations should not have passed on the basis of 2022 and 2023 simulations. Hamilton echoed that view and questioned how the current rule set was approved if simulations had already been run in 2022.

Sainz also said the energy-management limits were costing too much speed at Blanchimont and Pouhon, and warned that the first lap would be “tricky and sketchy” with active aerodynamics and close running up Eau Rouge and the Kemmel Straight. Battery deployment is capped at seven megajoules in qualifying, and poor energy retention could put cars at risk of falling under the 107 percent rule on high-speed circuits. Hamilton qualified poorly at Spa and was set to start from the third row, and said he would lean on his long-run pace in the SF-26 as he looked to earn a sixth podium of the season.

Max Verstappen renewed his criticism of Formula 1’s 2026 regulations after qualifying second at Spa-Francorchamps, saying the changes have made the Belgian Grand Prix circuit feel like “a different Spa.” He said the high-speed middle sector now feels more like driving a Formula 3 car with F1 downforce, and added that the lap was “not very exciting to drive.” Verstappen joked that he did not want to complain too much because “someone will shoot me outside the door” if he kept talking about the cars, and said he was trying to adapt before Sunday’s race.

Verstappen said Spa’s Sector 2 was effectively run on the engine alone, with little or no deployment under the new rules, and estimated the cars were producing about 450 to 500 horsepower in that section. He said the altered balance between combustion power and electric power was making the cars behave very differently at the track. Other drivers echoed the concerns, with Fernando Alonso having previously pointed to the same issue, while Kimi Antonelli, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri and Carlos Sainz all said corners such as Pouhon felt less like a corner and that the new rules had taken away some of the enjoyment of qualifying at Spa.

Drivers are hoping the situation improves in the coming years as the engine power split is adjusted in two steps. The target is for the balance to move toward 60-40 by 2028, but for now Spa remains the clearest example of how the 2026 regulations have changed the feel of Formula 1 driving.