Going into the weekend Max Verstappen led the Drivers' Championship with 265 points, 76 ahead of Lando Norris and 103 ahead of Charles Leclerc. Red Bull Racing led the Constructors' Championship with 389 points, from McLaren on 338 and Ferrari on 322.
Pirelli supplied the C2, C3, and C4 compounds — hard, medium, and soft — for the event. One track change was made compared to previous years: the DRS zone leading into Turn 5 was shortened by 75 metres.
Verstappen topped the first and third free practice sessions; Lando Norris topped the second. Lance Stroll crashed his Aston Martin at Raidillon during FP3, damaging his front-left suspension and front wing, curtailing further running in conditions already interrupted by bad weather.
Qualifying was held on a wet track on 27 July, with the 107% rule not applied given the conditions. Verstappen set the fastest time but received a ten-place grid penalty for exceeding his permitted quota of internal combustion engine components, dropping him to eleventh on the grid. Charles Leclerc inherited pole position. Yuki Tsunoda was required to start from the back of the grid for exceeding his power unit element allowance. Zhou Guanyu received a three-place penalty for impeding Verstappen in Q1, though he gained a net position as a result of Tsunoda's separate penalty.
The race ran for 44 laps on 28 July. Russell, starting fifth, executed an aggressive one-stop strategy that allowed him to leap forward and ultimately hold off his Mercedes teammate Hamilton and McLaren's Oscar Piastri to cross the line in first place.
Post-race scrutineering revealed Russell's car was 1.5 kg below the 798 kg minimum weight requirement. He was disqualified — the first Formula One driver to be removed from a race victory in 30 years, since Michael Schumacher's disqualification from the 1994 Belgian Grand Prix at the same circuit.
Hamilton inherited the win as Russell's disqualification was confirmed. It was the 105th victory of Hamilton's career. Piastri was promoted to second and Leclerc, originally classified fourth, moved to third — his first podium since his Monaco Grand Prix win earlier in the season.
Championship leader Verstappen finished fourth following his grid penalty, extending his lead over Norris to 78 points. Carlos Sainz Jr. and Sergio Pérez finished sixth and seventh. Fernando Alonso claimed eighth. Esteban Ocon finished ninth, his first points since the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix. Daniel Ricciardo took tenth — the final championship point of his Formula One career. Zhou Guanyu retired with a hydraulics failure, the race's only retirement.
The disqualification of Russell elevated Hamilton to a victory he did not earn on track, giving the result an asterisk that coloured its reception. For Hamilton personally, however, it stood as his final win as a Mercedes driver before his much-publicised move to Ferrari — and as it turned out, his last Grand Prix victory until the 2026 Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix. Russell became the first Formula One driver in three decades to be stripped of a race win on technical grounds, and the echoes of the 1994 Belgian Grand Prix — Schumacher's disqualification at the very same circuit — gave the incident a pointed historical symmetry.
McLaren's result reduced the gap to championship-leading Red Bull in the Constructors' standings to 42 points, with Ferrari on 345 points, 21 behind McLaren.
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