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SteemSports Presenter: @the23chronicles

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SteemSports General Manager: @theprophet0

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After a four week summer break, Formula 1 returned to action in Spa for the Belgian Grand Prix and it was an amazing one. Lewis Hamilton cut his championship deficit to Sebastian Vettel to just seven points with a closely fought victory in front of thousands of F1 faithful.

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Hamilton rarely led Vettel by more than two seconds in a very intense battle until a late safety car added further jeopardy. But after fending off an attack by the German on the restart, Hamilton took back control and led to the flag with the last podium place won by Daniel Ricciardo. Here’s how it all went down:

First Practice

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Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel sandwiched Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes with their Ferraris in Friday morning’s opening session, which featured an early red flag period after Felipe Massa put his Williams into the barriers. Hamilton set the pace throughout and still held all the three fastest sector times. And he was actually the fastest until Raikkonen put on ultrasofts and lapped better than Hamilton. Red Bull were a second off by the end of the session, using their plentiful supplies of ultrasofts to help Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo to fourth and fifth places, with Bottas coming in sixth.

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Second Practice

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Just half a second covered the top drivers in Friday’s afternoon second practice. With wet weather in the final half hour preventing further improvements, Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas finished first and third respectively, split by the Ferrari of FP1 leader, Kimi Raikkonen.

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Max Verstappen kept Red Bull in the mix, edging out Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel for fourth, and backed up by teammate Daniel Ricciardo in sixth place. Hamilton took complete charge of the session, before heavy rain with 25 minutes to go persuaded the majority of the drivers to cease their activities.

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Third Practice

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Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel headed Lewis Hamilton in Saturday morning’s final practice session – with just 0.198 seconds covering the three of them. Red Bull’s Max Verstappen was fourth, a full second off the pace. Valterri Bottas was fifth in the other Mercedes, followed by Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo and an impressive Jolyon Palmer dor Renault. In fine and dry conditions, the team were eager to make up for the running lost to rain on Friday at Spa, so it was a busy hour on the track.

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Qualifying

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Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton beat Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel to first place in Saturday’s qualifying session. It is the 68th pole of Hamilton’s career, matching Michael Schumacher’s outright pole-position record. A scintillating lap of 1m 42.553s put the Briton, who starts his 200th Grand Prix on Sunday, ahead of his championship rival, with teammate Valtteri Bottas third and Kimi Raikkonen, who was complaining of vibrations, fourth.

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The Red Bulls of Max Verstappen and Daniel Ricciardo were fifth and sixth respectively, followed by Renault’s Nico Hulkenberg. Hamilton owned the session and never looked like being beaten, but in the end it was a close-run thing between the three-time champion and points leader, Vettel, after a gripping hour of action.

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Main Race

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Hamilton took charge from the start as Vettel pushed in his wake ahead of Bottas, Raikkonen, Verstappen and Ricciardo. But it was yet another disappointing GP for Verstappen as he only lasted seven laps before suffering power loss and had to retire. Hamilton retained control until another incident between Force India drivers brought out the safety car on the 30th lap. Against expectations, Hamilton was able to contain Vettel’s challenge, even though the Ferrari was on the theoretically faster rubber. An impressive result was also rewarded for Hamilton as he was named F1 driver of the day.

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Standings

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The win brings Lewis Hamilton within seven points of Sebastian Vettel. He has 213 as opposed to Vettel’s 220. Bottas is third with 179, Ricciardo fourth on 132 and Raikkonen is fifth with 128 points. In the team standings, Mercedes maintain their lead with 392 points and are still trailed by Ferrari who are on 348. A distant third is Red Bull on 199. After an interesting weekend, the F1 season moves on to Italy next weekend.

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