Hallo MiniFans! Welcome back in Spa after an eventful summer break! During the last four weeks, we got a lot of news. Mercedes retained Bottas alongside Hamilton in 2020, Perez will race three more years for Racing Point, but above all, we had the (un)expected driver swap at Red Bull. Albon will replace Gasly from this GP on after a disappointing first half of the season from the Frenchie. How well does Albon acclimatize to his new car? Let’s see!

With only 5 minutes down in Q1, Kubica’s Williams lit up out of nowhere. His exhaust started smoking in Blanchimont and caught fire after a quick powerloss. The red flag was being waved right away. Hamilton didn’t dislike that. He had a crash in FP3 and could use that extra time to fix his car. When the track was cleared, Verstappen reported an engine problem and drove very slowly. This way, he couldn’t set an official lap time yet. With only 3 minutes on the clock, he secured his place in Q2 by setting the third best time. Seconds later, the session was stopped about a minute early, when Giovinazzi had to park his smoking car in front of Eau Rouge. We went to Q2 without Gasly, Sainz, Kvyat, Russell and Kubica.

The tables have turned in Q2! Ferrari was the fastest on track, followed by Mercedes. But who is going to take that pole position? Will the Red Horses take their first front row lock-out since Bahrein? For now, we can only say that Ricciardo is driving a very good weekend and set the fifth best time of this second part of qualifying. The ones who didn’t make it to Q3 are Grosjean, Norris, Stroll, Albon and Giovinazzi.

Leclerc drove the fastest time of the session with only 5 minutes to go. The Monegasque was 6 tenths quicker than Hamilton. Verstappen was the first one to go on track for the last flying lap with two minutes to go. The top five was ready to give it all one last time and go for the pole.

Charles Leclerc takes pole position with a 0.7 second gap to Vettel. Hamilton starts from the second row next to Bottas. The top ten was completed by Verstappen, Ricciardo, Hulkenberg, Raikkonen, Perez and Magnussen. We should also not forget to mention that the startgrid will be shaken up quite a bit. Albon, Kvyat and Russell will start from the back of the grid because they used new and updated engines. There are some other drivers who will recieve a penalty as well.

We are back tomorrow for the race! Until then, stay MiniCool!