The 2026 Belgian GP race brought many interesting facts and statistics about drivers, teams, engines, lap times, and attendance in the stands. Details in the summary of the F1 race from the “A Handful of Statistics Circus F1” series after the 2026 Belgian GP.
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Achievements and records of drivers who finished on the podium
Kimi Antonelli won his sixth F1 race in his career.
Antonelli secured Pole Position for the sixth time in his career.
Antonelli only once failed to convert Pole Position into a race win.
This year, Antonelli has only qualified in the TOP4 positions.
Antonelli won qualifying with the largest margin this year over the second driver – 0.317 seconds.
Antonelli recorded his 11th career podium.
In 2025, Antonelli was eliminated in Q1 in Belgium qualifying and scored no points in the race. In 2026, he won both qualifying and the race.
Charles Leclerc recorded his 54th career podium.
Leclerc has achieved five podiums in Belgian GP races out of nine starts. The Monegasque driver has as many podiums at the Red Bull Ring, but he competed there 11 times. His best average is in Belgium.
Leclerc became the first Ferrari driver in history to score four consecutive podiums at Spa-Francorchamps (seasons 2023 – 2026).
Max Verstappen recorded his 130th career podium.
Verstappen has six podiums in the Belgian GP: 3x first place and 3x third place.
For the third time this season, Verstappen secured second place in qualifying.
Verstappen started from the front row for the 88th time in his career. The Dutchman moved up to sole fourth place in the historical ranking, pushing Senna to fifth place.
Achievements of other drivers
Lewis Hamilton scored more points this season (159) than in the entire last year (156).
Hamilton finished all this year’s races in the TOP6 positions.
Hamilton advanced to Q3 in F1 qualifying for the 350th time out of 390 starts, which is obviously a clear F1 record. The Briton was eliminated 22 times in Q1 and 18 times in Q2 during his career.
Hamilton did not finish five Belgian GP races. He has no other track with as many DNFs. He was eliminated three times in Belgium on the first lap, which is also his personal record. Collisions were always the direct or indirect cause. In 2026, he also had a collision on the first lap.
Hamilton finished 14 Belgian GP races in the TOP4 positions.
Oscar Piastri finished 50% of this year’s qualifying sessions in seventh position.
Piastri recorded his worst career qualifying result at Spa-Francorchamps. Additionally, he finished the race for the first time without scoring a podium.
Isack Hadjar finished the last six F1 races in the TOP6 positions but never formally scored a podium.
Hadjar gained 15 positions at the finish compared to his starting position. This is the best result of any driver this year.
Lando Norris set the fastest lap in the Belgian GP for the first time, and also for the second time this season and the 20th time in his career.
Arvid Lindblad scored points in five consecutive races for the first time in his career.
Lindblad achieved his best qualifying result in his career – eighth position.
Gabriel Bortoleto matched his best race result this season – eighth position.
Bortoleto always scores points in Belgium.
Bortoleto matched his best qualifying result this season – ninth place.
Franco Colapinto scored points for the sixth time this season, finishing tenth three times.
Pierre Gasly always finishes Belgian GP races. He scored points six times in nine starts.
Carlos Sainz has had very poor and unlucky (failures) results at Spa-Francorchamps throughout his F1 career. He did not finish five races. His only good performances were third place in 2022 (plus Pole Position) and sixth place in 2024.
Esteban Ocon recorded his worst qualifying (18th) and race (17th) positions this season.
Ocon finished all Belgian GP races in his career, scoring no points only in his first race with Manor and in the last two with Haas.
Fernando Alonso has never won the Belgian GP despite several opportunities. The Spaniard has three podiums at this track and a total of seven TOP5 finishes. On the other hand, he failed to finish seven times due to failures or crashes.
Read more Antonelli returned to winning at the 2026 Belgian GP
Lance Stroll finished only three F1 races this year.
Sergio Perez was eliminated in Q1 in Belgian GP qualifying for the first time in his career.
George Russell scored a podium in the Belgian GP with Williams in the “wet race” in 2021. Officially, he has no podium in Belgium with Mercedes, but in 2024 he finished first and was disqualified for a technical regulation breach. In 2026, he retired after a collision on the first lap.
Russell was eliminated from a race on the first lap for the second time in his career.
Statistics about teams and engines
Mercedes recorded its 139th Formula 1 victory, including the seventh at the Belgian GP.
Mercedes recorded its 153rd Pole Position in Formula 1, including the eighth at Spa-Francorchamps.
Mercedes secured all Pole Positions this season. For the fifth time in their history, they can boast a streak of ten consecutive Pole Positions.
This year, Mercedes drivers did not score points in 25% of races: 5/20 occasions.
Leclerc’s second place is Ferrari’s best result in the Belgian GP since 2019, when Leclerc won the race.
Red Bull joined the group of teams with three hundred podiums. The top ranking is below:
Number of podium places won by teams in F1 history:
Ferrari – 845
McLaren – 562
Mercedes – 323
Williams – 315
Red Bull – 300
Lotus – 197Red Bull joined the group of teams with three hundred podiums.
#F1PL— Karol z CyrkF1 (@karolzcyrkf1.bsky.social) 19 July 2026 17:57
Haas scored points in Belgian GP races only in 2017 and 2018.
Aston Martin drivers occupied the last qualifying positions in Belgium in 2025 and 2026.
Other statistical curiosities after the 2026 Belgian GP
The Belgian GP was included in the Formula 1 calendar for the 71st time.
Spa-Francorchamps hosted the Belgian GP race for the 59th time. In total, three different tracks in Belgium have hosted an F1 race.
Since the Belgian GP returned to the F1 calendar in 2007 after the Spa-Francorchamps track layout modification, the driver starting from Pole Position has always finished on the podium.
It took Italians 17 years for their driver to start from Pole Position again in the Belgian GP. The previous such result was by Giancarlo Fisichella in 2009.
It took Italians 73 years for their driver to win the Belgian GP again at Spa-Francorchamps. The previous winner was Alberto Ascari in 1953.
Hamilton is the only driver who completed all laps this season.
Hamilton is the only driver who scored points in every race this season.
Out of 30 possible podiums this year: Mercedes won 13, Ferrari nine, McLaren four, Red Bull three, and Alpine one.
Lap times, top speed, and pit stops at the 2026 Belgian GP
Kimi Antonelli won qualifying for the 2026 Belgian GP with a time of 1:44.361. The Mercedes driver’s result was 3.851 seconds slower than the Spa-Francorchamps qualifying record set by Oscar Piastri in 2025 – 1:40.510.
Lando Norris set the fastest lap during the race. The Briton clocked 1:48.890 on lap 44. This is 4.189 seconds slower than the official Spa-Francorchamps track record (official records come from races) set in 2024 by Sergio Perez – 1:44.701.
The Spa-Francorchamps track configuration with many fast corners is very unfavorable for this year’s cars, which are designed to have significantly less aerodynamic downforce. The track also exposes imperfections related to power units, as there is a lack of electric energy along the entire length of the straights. Therefore, lap times are clearly worse than in previous years when F1 cars were extremely fast.
The highest top speed during the race was achieved by Alex Albon and Isack Hadjar. The Thai and Frenchman recorded 344.9 km/h at the measurement point at the end of the first sector. According to telemetry data, Hamilton accelerated to 350 km/h, clearly speeding up after passing the measurement point (he had 339.7 km/h there). In 2025, the maximum speed in the F1 race at the Belgian track was higher – 352.9 km/h by Kimi Antonelli.
The fastest pit stop during the 2026 Belgian GP was performed by Ferrari mechanics. On lap 20, they changed all four wheels on Charles Leclerc’s car in 2.30 seconds. The season record remains Ferrari’s result from the Japanese GP – 2.00 seconds.
Attendance at the 2026 Belgian GP
During the TV broadcast, it was reported that the weekend attendance was 400,000 people (Source). This is a new record for the Belgian GP. The previous record was 389,000 fans set in 2025. Unfortunately, we do not know the attendance details broken down by individual days. We do know that a maximum of 115,000 fans can appear at the track on one day, as this is the limit. A few days before the race weekend, promoter Vanessa Maes confirmed the sale of all tickets. She also said that the number of ticket purchases by Dutch fans, who were supposed to be about 10% at the track, significantly dropped compared to previous years when it was about 50%. In recent years, many investments have been made at Spa-Francorchamps to increase capacity and especially improve the quality of spectator areas.
In the table below, you can see how significantly fan attendance at Spa-Francorchamps has increased over the last decade. Weekend attendance for this Grand Prix includes four days from Thursday to Sunday.
| Season | Weekend Attendance |
|---|---|
| 2016 | 200,000 |
| 2017 | 265,000 |
| 2018 | 250,000 |
| 2019 | 251,864 |
| 2021 | 213,000 |
| 2022 | 360,000 |
| 2023 | 380,000 |
| 2024 | 380,000 |
| 2025 | 389,000 |
| 2026 | 400,000 |
For the Belgian GP, one important thing must be remembered. The promoter (probably the only one in the entire calendar) does not provide attendance related only to fans but the total number of people at the track. They add to the number of tickets sold the people who were without tickets: team crews, staff, journalists, stewards, security, etc. This is supposed to be as many as 20,000 people every day. This information appeared a few years ago and was later omitted.
Statistical summaries of previous Formula 1 races and more can be found under the Statistics tag.
