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Preamble
In The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the most unspeakably offensive word in most of the cosmos is coincidentally also the name of a small country on Earth. Will anyone be taking Belgium’s name in vain after this weekend’s grand prix?
Well, after this morning’s final practice session, perhaps Lewis Hamilton.
For Hamilton, 2025 was one long bleep. But even if he has dropped back from second after Monaco and Barcelona – his first Ferrari win – to third in the standings, he is only seven points worse off than Russell and gained substantially on Antonelli. However, as PA reports:
Lewis Hamilton will face a race against time to take part in qualifying for tomorrow’s Belgian Grand Prix after he crashed out of final practice.
In the final seconds on the concluding session at Spa-Francorchamps, Hamilton lost control of his Ferrari on the exit of Fagnes, racing through the gravel with the rear of his car thudding into the barrier.
“I have destroyed the car, mate,” said Hamilton as he came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the track.
Hamilton, unharmed in the accident, got out of his car to inspect the significant damage to the back right of his Ferrari – with his back-right wheel facing the wrong way.
Earlier in the season, it was a Mercedes driver and Max Verstappen who were getting regularly bleeped over their radios. More recently, it’s been a Mercedes driver and Max Verstappen who have been getting bleeped on their radios, the change being that the former is now Kimi Antonelli rather than George Russell. Two finishes outside the points in the past three races after five straight wins have cut the 19-year-old’s championship lead to 25, from a high of 66. His car’s manoeuvrability failure at Silverstone when closing on the lead tested his youthful vocabulary.
Life seemed to be improving for Verstappen with his second place in Austria, against a background of speculation over his Red Bull future. But the Dutchman crashing out at Silverstone had the bleep police out in force.
Even Charles Leclerc, after the horror of retiring at his home grand prix in Monaco and then 15th in Barcelona as Hamilton was coming first and second, was swearing, albeit suavely, but won for Ferrari at Silverstone.
Lando Norris, meanwhile, had his blue moments in China, along with Oscar Piastri because of McLaren’s double “did not start” with a power unit failure, followed by another problem in Japan. However Norris does in qualifying, he will start a further 10 places back, as the team have opted to take a new, improved Mercedes power unit now. McLaren explained: “We have chosen to do this in [expletive deleted], a circuit where overtaking is relatively more prevalent, as opposed to the following two events in Hungary and Zandvoort.”
According to Douglas Adams, the concept Belgium embodies “is so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the Galaxy except one, where they don’t know what it means”. Join me from 2.30pm for the buildup to qualifying, then from 3pm to see who, if anyone, will today be joining Zaphod Beeblebrox in exclaiming: “Holy Belgium, man!”
