Hamilton won two Sundays ago, in Montmeló (Barcelona), the Spanish Grand Prix, where he improved the podium record that he shared with Schumacher - raising it to 156 - with his fourth victory in the first six races of the pandemic championship. The eighty-eighth of his F1 career, which puts him just three away from another of the 'Kaiser's' historic records: the most wins in the top category.

Lewis leads the championship with 132 points, 37 more than the Dutchman Max Verstappen (Red Bull), who in the second race at Silverstone (England) achieved the only victory that the dominant 'silver arrows' did not score this year, wearing black in protest against racism. Finnish Valtteri Bottas, Hamilton's teammate and third in the championship, 43 points behind his team leader, won on the debut in Austria.

The Covid-19 World Championship - expanded, for now, to 17 races, after the FIA ​​announced the Turkish Grand Prix on Tuesday, as well as two races in Bahrain and the traditional season finale in Abu Dhabi on December 13th - will resume, again with enormous sanitary security measures and behind closed doors, at the longest circuit of the championship, just over seven kilometers long.

The legendary Spa-Francorchamps track, where free practice will start this Friday - dry running will be with the C2 compound tires (hard, identified by the white stripe), C3 (medium, yellow stripe) and C4 (soft, red) - is scheduled to run 44 laps on Sunday, to complete a distance of 308 kilometers. That, after completing the practice on Saturday, hours before the qualifying session that will determine the starting grid for the Sunday race.

The one at the legendary Ardennes circuit will be the first of three races that will be held over the next three weekends. The next one will be at another monument: Monza, the temple of speed. And, again in Italy, the second Sunday of September will mark the debut of the Tuscan Grand Prix, in Mugello.

Ferrari, the most successful team in history, currently occupies a discreet fifth place in the Constructors' World Championship - which has been firmly dominated for the seventh consecutive year by Mercedes, with 221 points, 86 more than Red Bull - would happily settle for replicating last year's result in the next two races. Monegasque Charles Leclerc, fourth in the championship - 87 points behind Hamilton - won his two F1 victories at Spa, where he made his debut, and at Monza.

Spanish driver Carlos Sainz (McLaren), who started with a fifth place at the Austrian Grand Prix and repeated ninth place at the Styrian and Hungarian Grands Prix, got back on track by finishing sixth in Barcelona. After two unfortunate races at Silverstone, where he finished thirteenth both at the British Grand Prix and at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix of the creation of Formula One.

The talented Madrid-born driver, ninth in the world championship with 23 points - his best result at Spa being a tenth place in 2017 - hopes that Barcelona was a turning point in his season and trusts to maintain "the positive energy created in Spain", as the Constructors' World Championship is "very tight". His team is fourth, with 62 points, one more than Ferrari and one behind Racing Point, Sergio Pérez's team, third in the championship by teams.

'Checo' - eighth in the drivers' standings with 32 points - who finished sixth in the first two races at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg (Austria) and seventh at the Hungaroring, also achieved his best result of the season in Spain, finishing fifth in Montmeló.

The brave Mexican driver achieved his best performance of the season after recovering from the huge setback of testing positive for coronavirus, which prevented him from starting the two races at Silverstone, where he was replaced by German driver Nico Hülkenberg. The Mexican will aim for the podium again on a track where he has finished fifth three times (2015, 2016, and 2018) and where he finished sixth last year.

It will be difficult to avoid remembering this weekend the Frenchman Anthoine Hubert, who died a year ago at the age of 22 in the Formula 2 race held at Spa, in a brutal accident at the exit of the legendary Eau Rouge corner, where he collided with Juan Manuel Correa. The Ecuadorian-American is still struggling to overcome his serious leg injuries, hoping for a return to racing.

"Anthoine was a young talent that fate took away from us too soon. We will always remember him wherever we race, but even more so in Spa," explained Sainz in reference to the French driver, whom Leclerc also sadly remembered. He celebrated his first Formula 1 victory with a black armband, mourning the death of his friend, just the day before.

"We lost our friend Anthoine there last year," commented the Ferrari driver before heading to Spa-Francorchamps. "Returning to that circuit is going to be difficult," said Leclerc, who, like Verstappen - who is also 22 years old - has the possibility of becoming (although the Monegasque has a more difficult path) the youngest champion in F1 history. As long as they can dethrone the relentless Hamilton.