Kimi Antonelli returned to the top step of the podium with his sixth victory of the season at the Belgian Grand Prix, extending his championship lead in the process. But who else impressed our Power Rankings judges at Spa-Francorchamps? Check out the latest scores and overall leaderboard below…<\/p>\n
After a run of races without a win, Antonelli<\/a> made up for that in style at the historic Spa circuit. The Mercedes<\/a> driver looked in commanding form as he sealed pole position, before converting this into victory on Sunday \u2013 meaning that his advantage at the top of the standings is now at 45 points.<\/p>\n Off the back of his triumph at Silverstone, Charles Leclerc<\/a> enjoyed another strong weekend. Pitting under the Virtual Safety Car put the Ferrari<\/a> racer into the lead during the race \u2013 and while he could not quite keep Antonelli at bay, he still came home in a solid P2.<\/p>\n Gabriel Bortoleto<\/a> made it back-to-back points finishes by taking P8 at the Belgian Grand Prix, the Brazilian having impressed by reaching Q3 in Saturday\u2019s Qualifying before holding off the Racing Bulls cars on race day.<\/p>\n It was an eye-catching start to the Grand Prix for Max Verstappen<\/a>, who challenged Antonelli for the lead after starting from P2 on the grid. While he could not hold onto that position \u2013 and later lost out by pitting just before a VSC \u2013 the Red Bull<\/a> man still took the final spot on the podium.<\/p>\n In his debut Spa race as an F1 driver, Arvid Lindblad<\/a> was running as high as sixth during the opening stages. Both he and team mate Liam Lawson pitted just prior to the VSC, meaning that they were overtaken by Bortoleto \u2013 but Lindblad still recovered to a points-paying position of P9.<\/p>\n Isack Hadjar<\/a> played the team game in Qualifying by giving Verstappen a valuable tow, with the Frenchman set to start from the back due to a power unit penalty. Despite his grid position, Hadjar worked his way through the field and ultimately crossed the line in sixth place.<\/p>\n Lando Norris<\/a> was another driver hit with an engine penalty at Spa, meaning that he embarked on a long first stint on the hard tyres. While pitting too late meant that there was not enough time to benefit from his fresher tyres, the McLaren<\/a> driver showed good pace en route to P7.<\/p>\n A strong start by Franco Colapinto<\/a> saw the Argentinian driver lead Alpine<\/a>\u2019s charge in the Belgian Grand Prix, at one stage pulling off an impressive overtake on both Pierre Gasly and Lawson to move himself up into the points with a P10 finish.<\/p>\n It was not an entirely smooth weekend for Lewis Hamilton<\/a>, who suffered a crash during third practice on Saturday and also picked up a five-second time penalty for contact with George Russell on Lap 1 of Sunday\u2019s race. However, the seven-time World Champion recovered well from his setbacks and was relieved to bring home valuable points in fourth place.<\/p>\n Oscar Piastri<\/a> had good pace in the opening stages, battling near the front after starting from P6 on the grid. Damage sustained to his McLaren after contact with Leclerc saw the Australian struggle to maintain that early momentum, but he still ended the day with a P5 result.<\/p>\n Four names are tied for the final spot on our Power Rankings leaderboard this week, with Pierre Gasly<\/a> also catching the judges\u2019 eye. The Frenchman fought hard to get himself into the points, but had to settle for P11 at the chequered flag.<\/p>\n Also making it into our top rankings is Lawson<\/a>. After battling with his team mate early on, both Racing Bulls<\/a> lost out after pitting just before the VSC and Lawson did not quite have the pace to climb back into the top 10, with the team explaining that deployment issues had affected his car.<\/p>\n Nico Hulkenberg<\/a>\u2019s search for his first points of the season continues, but the Audi<\/a> driver displayed encouraging race pace at Spa, ending the event in P13 and only 2.2s away from the bottom of the top 10.<\/p>\n Missing out<\/p>\n Just missing out on a place in the top half of this week\u2019s Power Rankings is Ollie Bearman<\/a>, the Haas<\/a> driver having tried to make the most of his car\u2019s flashes of pace despite not quite being in the fight for points.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kimi Antonelli returned to the top step of the podium with his sixth victory of the season at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-814535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=814535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/814535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=814535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=814535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=814535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}