Clear skies, sunny. Temperature: air 22°, track 35°
Start. At the start, Carlos keeps the lead, while Charles, promoted to 14th on the grid after Pierre Gasly’s AlphaTauri starts from pit lane, crosses the line tenth before passing Lance Stroll on the Kemmel straight. At the Les Combes chicane, Nicholas Latifi and Valtteri Bottas touch and the Safety Car is out.
Lap 4. A visor tear-off ends up in one of Charles’ brake ducts, so he has to pit to have it removed, going oout on Medium tyres, rejoining 17th.
Lap 5. Leclerc passes Latifi.
Lap 8. Charles passes Gasly and Yuki Tsunoda to go up to P13.
Lap 9. Leclerc passes Kevin Magnussen to go 12th.
Lap 12. Carlos stops to go from. Soft to Medium tyres. He is sixth but soon moves up to fifth, passing Daniel Ricciardo. Leclerc passes Lando Norris, moving up to ninth, partly due to other drivers pitting.
Lap 13. Ricciardo pits and Charles is seventh behind Stroll.
Lap 14. Sainz passes Sebastian for fourth, but is soon third when George Russell pits for tyres. Leclerc does the same to Stroll to go fifth.
Lap 16. Perez pits, Carlos is second. The Mexican emerges ahead of Charles in third place.
Lap 17. Verstappen pits and Carlos is back in the lead, while Russell passes Charles.
Lap 19. Verstappen attacks Carlos to take the lead.
Lap 26. Carlos and Charles both pit, the former for Hards, the latter for Mediums. They are now fourth and seventh.
Lap 29. Leclerc passes Ocon to take sixth place, and with Russell pitting, Carlos is third again.
Lap 31. Charles passes Vettel for fifth.
Lap 43. Leclerc pits for Softs and emerges just ahead of Alonso, who then passes him. Leclerc gets back in front but is unable to set the fastest lap and the race finishes with Verstappen winning ahead of Perez and Carlos, with Charles fifth, but then demoted to sixth, because of a 5-second time penalty for speeding in the pitlane at his last stop.