Everything you need to know about the coming 2023 Belgian Grand Prix

The first half of the 2023 Formula 1 season will conclude with the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix, which will also be the third event of the campaign under the Sprint format. Red Bull will look to continue making history with its dominant RB19, as Max Verstappen is looking for an eighth consecutive victory and the team is going for an unprecedented 13th consecutive win, with the record already in the Austrian team's hands.

1. Verstappen crushing the competition

Verstappen is easily heading towards another World Drivers' Championship, with nine wins out of 11 races this year and his car looking increasingly dominant race by race. Sergio Pérez, Red Bull's second driver, is second in the WDC standings, 110 points behind Verstappen.

Third in the WDC standings is Fernando Alonso with 139, although the recent struggles of Aston Martin have put Alonso's P3 spot in danger, with Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) only six points behind the Spanish driver. Hamilton's teammate, George Russell, is fifth in the standings with 90 points, followed by the Ferrari pair of Carlos Sainz (87) and Charles Leclerc (80).

McLaren's Lando Norris is already eighth in the standings with 60 points and has taken full advantage of McLaren's resurgence in pace in recent races. Arguably, the McLaren has been the second-best car in the field in the last couple of races, with Norris leading the charge.

Aston Martin's Lance Stroll and Alpine's Esteban Ocon round out the Top 10, with 45 and 31 points, respectively.

Race winner Max Verstappen and Second placed Lando Norris celebrate in parc ferme during the 2023 F1 Grand Prix of Hungary

Among teams, Red Bull is clearly dominating the entire field with 11 wins in 11 Grands Prix and 452 points. Mercedes is in a distant second place in the WCC with 223 points, while Aston Martin is third with 184 points.

The Scuderia Ferrari remains fourth in the World Constructors' Championship with 167 points. McLaren (Norris and Oscar Piastri) seemed to be in a fight for fifth in the WCC with Alpine (Ocon and Pierre Gasly). However, McLaren has scored more points in the last two rounds (58) than Alpine has scored in the entire season (47) and is already 40 points ahead. The French team hasn't scored points in the last two GPs.

Williams (11 points with Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant) is seventh in the WCC, tied with Haas (11 points with Kevin Magnussen and Nico Hulkenberg). While both teams' best result this year is a seventh place, Williams is ahead because its second-best finish in a race is an eighth place, while Haas' second-best finish in a race this year is 10th.

Alfa Romeo (nine points with Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu), and AlphaTauri (two points with Yuki Tsunoda and Daniel Ricciardo) round out the 2023 F1 World Constructors' Championship positions so far.

2. 2023 Belgian GP Facts & Figures

The Belgian Grand Prix is an iconic round of the Formula World Championship, which has been part of virtually every campaign of the pinnacle of motor racing in history.

The race on Sunday will be the 68th running of the Belgian Grand Prix as a part of the World Championship of Drivers. The first championship race in Belgium occurred in 1950, with the legendary Juan Manuel Fangio winning for Alfa Romeo ahead of his teammate Luigi Fagioli.

Coincidentally, Alfa Romeo had won the first running of the Belgian Grand Prix in history in 1925 when Antonio Ascari (father of two-time World Champion Alberto) dominated the Spa round of the World Manufacturers’ Championship.

The event has taken place at three different tracks, with Nivelles (1972 and 1974) and Zolder (10 events) hosting races in the 1970s and early 1980s. Zolder was the site of the crash that took the life of the legendary Gilles Villeneuve in 1982. While the 1981 event saw the tragic death of an Osella mechanic, Giovanni Amadeo, who was hit by Carlos Reutemann's Williams, the eventual race-winner.

World Champions have won 51 editions of the Belgian round, with Michael Schumacher dominating the event six times, including his first-ever GP win in 1992.

Ayrton Senna (five), Jim Clark, Kimi Raikkonen, and Lewis Hamilton (four each) follow Schumacher in the list of drivers with the most wins in the Belgian Grand Prix. Senna and Clark had streaks of four consecutive wins at Spa each, which is a record at the iconic track.

Hamilton and Verstappen are the only active drivers to have multiple wins in Belgium, including the non-race in 2021. Ricciardo (2014) and Leclerc (2019) are the other active drivers who have won at Spa, with the Monegasque taking his maiden win at the venue.

Regarding team wins, Ferrari leads McLaren with 18 victories to 14. Lotus sits third with eight wins and Mercedes fourth with seven triumphs in three very different eras. They won twice in the European Championship, in 1935 and 1939 with Rudolf Caracciola and Hermann Lang, respectively. Then, Mercedes won an actual World Championship race in Belgium in 1955 with Fangio and added three more wins to their tally with Hamilton (2015, 2017 and 2020) and Nico Rosberg (2016) winning in the Hybrid Era.

3. Spa-Francorchamps Track Info

A legendary circuit, Spa was originally a 15-kilometer track and it was shortened to a 14-kilometer course which was faster than the first version, while both layouts included public roads.

The circuit proved highly dangerous, with the 1960 event being the only one in Formula 1 history where two drivers died during the same race (Chris Bristow and Alan Stacey suffered sad fatal accidents). Clark dominated the track during the 1960s, with four straight wins from 1962 to 1965, but the drivers were fully aware of the dangers of the circuit and ultimately wanted it to adapt to safety measures or simply they would not compete there.

The track was ultimately boycotted in 1969, and though it returned in 1970 with Pedro Rodríguez’s win for BRM, the safety concerns remained, and Spa was out of the calendar until 1983, a year after legendary Gilles Villeneuve lost his life in one of the other venues of the Belgian Grand Prix, Zolder.

The new 7-kilometer track was designed in 1979, and it has remained similar until recent years, though the last sector was changed in 2007, with The Bus Stop changed and the main straight extended.

Peter Collins (1956), Jim Clark (1962), Michael Schumacher (1992), and Charles Leclerc (2019) all took their maiden GP win at Spa-Francorchamps. Schumacher made his F1 debut in 1991 at Spa and sealed his seventh and final Formula 1 World Championship in 2004 in the Belgian circuit.

In the 2000 race, two-time champion Mika Hakkinen made one of Formula 1’s greatest overtakes, with a backmarker in the middle of the track. Schumacher overtook the backmarker, Ricardo Zonta, on the left side of the Kemmel Straight before Les Combes. In contrast, Hakkinen overtook them both after taking the inside line into Les Combes and went on to win the race.

In the Hybrid Era, Red Bull, Mercedes, and Ferrari have won races at Spa.

This year’s race will be the 56th Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

The track seems to be a power-demanding one, but it has 20 corners and the middle sector creates a setup problem that prompts the need for the teams to produce a lot of downforce. It is not easy to have the right setup for Spa, but balance is key to performing an overall great lap. However, a car without high top speed will suffer a bit in the Kemmel Straight on Sunday, especially if that car starts in Pole Position and has no car in front to take advantage of the slipstream. Still, a fast car in the middle sector can have a proper shot at great results.

The current layout is 7.004-km long and the track records are held by Lewis Hamilton, with an outright Fastest Lap of 1:41.253 min in 2020, and Valtteri Bottas, with the Fastest Lap during a race of 1:46.286 min at an average speed of 237.231 km/h in 2018.

4. 2023 Belgian Grand Prix - Tyres

The dry tyres for the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix will be the C2 as P Zero White hard, C3 as P Zero Yellow Medium, and C4 as P Zero Red soft.

Pirelli's Motorsport Director, Mario Isola, explained the choice with a simple statement in a press release: “After just a couple of days off, there’s another Formula 1 race this weekend: the last before the summer break. The Belgian Grand Prix is one of the most prestigious races on the calendar, held on a track that’s particularly challenging for drivers, cars, and tyres.

We’ve nominated the same line-up of compounds as last year – C2, C3, and C4 – to offer a wide range of strategy options; at least if the rain holds off. Traditionally, the weather at Spa is a key factor throughout the weekend; the fact that the grand prix has moved dates – from the first race after the summer break to the last race before it – should make little difference, as the forecast is always variable anyway.

The length of the track, with Spa being the longest lap of the year, and the variation in elevation – which is also the biggest of the whole season – means that it’s easy to find wet conditions on one part of the track while it’s completely dry elsewhere. New for this year is Spa becoming the third Sprint venue of the season, after Baku and Spielberg, with a Sprint Shootout on Saturday morning followed by a 100-kilometre race in the afternoon.

With just an hour of free practice before qualifying on Friday (which, for now, seems to be the day most at risk of rain) there will be even less time than usual to set up the cars. At Spa, we tend to see some of the biggest differences in terms of aerodynamic setup between the teams: some prefer more downforce in order to push harder during the second sector while others prefer a looser car to have extra speed to attack and defend more down the straights. With two races this year, one of the most spectacular venues of the season is set to put on an even bigger show.”

The minimum starting pressures will be 25.0 psi (front) and 23.0 psi (rear).

5. 2023 Belgian Grand Prix Weather Forecast

Friday, July 28th - FP & Qualifying
Conditions: Mostly cloudy with a couple of showers and a thunderstorm
Max. temperature: 21°C
Chance of rain: 65%

Saturday, July 29th - Sprint Shootout & Sprint Race
Conditions: Cloudy with a little rain
Max. temperature: 21°C
Chance of rain: 61%

Sunday, July 30th - Race
Conditions: Partly sunny
Max. temperature: 18°C
Chance of rain: 25%

6. Who will be on the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix Podium?

Lewis Hamilton and Daniel Ricciardo on podium at Belgian GP F1 2017

If Sergio Pérez manages to have a normal Qualifying session on Friday, then Red Bull should be cruising to a comfortable 1-2 on Sunday's race, with the Spa-Francorchamps circuit arguably being the strongest for the team last year, when Verstappen comfortably won from 14th on the grid (the second-lowest grid position for a winner at Spa, behind Michael Schumacher's 16th starting position in 1995).

Who could be the (distant) second force at the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix? McLaren could be the likely candidate to take that place, although Team Principal Andrea Stella has been cautious about the team's chances for the upcoming event.

Talking about McLaren's chances, Stella pointed out how the track might not be the best for the car.

“Even if Spa is normally mentioned as one of the high-speed tracks, in reality, the highest-speed corner, which is corner 10 [Pouhon] is flat in qualifying. There's a lot of lap time in corner one [La Source] which is [50mph], in corner eight [Les Combes] which is [60mph] and in the last chicane, which is [55mph].

So, I don't want to repeat myself, but I go with some care because in these three corners, at the moment, we see that we lose time. So, I think that's where we are. It will be also a sprint event. So, in addition to the outright performance, it will be important how rapidly you adapt your car to the demand of the track.

“Spa is also a very demanding track in terms of understanding, for instance, your ride heights, because with Eau Rouge, you can't run too low, because otherwise, you would have problems under the car. So how rapidly you can set up your car can make a difference for the entire week's performance.”

The prediction for the top three of the 2023 Belgian Grand Prix is 1. Max Verstappen, 2. Sergio Pérez, 3. Lando Norris.

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