After two near-misses, Charles Leclerc finally secured his maiden win in Formula 1 with an excellent victory at the Belgian Grand Prix.
The Monegasque was in control for much of Sunday’s race at Spa, but he would need to hold off a late charge by Lewis Hamilton to give Ferrari their first win of 2019.
It was a race of strategy between the two teams as the Scuderia enjoyed the straight-line speed advantage, but Mercedes were better on their tyres and were much faster at the end of each stint.
For Vettel, the decision to pit early proved detrimental to his race as despite a strong push to actually hold the lead when the others pitted, he would hand back the lead to Leclerc after a Ferrari team order.
The German would help his teammate in another way too by holding up Hamilton for several laps and allowing Charles to open a seven-second lead.
He would need it too as the final gap was just nine-tenths of a second between first and second, as a yellow flag on the last lap effectively ended Lewis’ hopes.
Soon after being passed into Les Combes by Hamilton, Vettel stopped again for soft tyres and would drop to fourth behind the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.
The faster tyres would at least enable Sebastian to also set the fastest lap, gaining one more point.
Behind, Alex Albon emerged from a mental midfield battle in a remarkable fifth on debut for Red Bull having made his way through from 17th.
The Thai driver was left to salvage the day for the Milton Keynes outfit as a bad start for Max Verstappen saw him collide with Kimi Raikkonen at La Source.
With a damaged front-right suspension, Max’s car didn’t take the right-hander of Raidillon and the Dutchman ended up in the barrier.
It appeared though that Lando Norris was on course to claim fifth, which he had inherited as a result of the first corner incidents which also dropped both Renaults down the field.
With the Haas cars behind, the McLaren driver pulled out a big advantage but lost power on the start of the final lap and came to a halt.
That promoted Albon, who passed Sergio Perez late on with the Mexican the top midfield running in sixth ahead of Daniil Kvyat in seventh.
Also on the final lap, Antonio Giovinazzi caused the yellow flag which ended Hamilton’s charge after crashing heavily at Pouhon while running eighth.
The Italian was on course for his best F1 finish before that point, having used good strategy to come through from the back of the field.
That allowed Nico Hulkenberg to inherit eighth with Pierre Gasly ninth on his return to Toro Rosso. Lance Stroll also gained several positions in the final laps to round out the top 10.
Kevin Magnussen and Romain Grosjean were 12th and 13th for Haas, having spent most of their race going backwards.
Daniel Ricciardo also dropped off the pace in the closing laps, falling to 14th in the Renault.
George Russell was 15th ahead of Raikkonen with his damaged Alfa after the La Source clash with Verstappen and Robert Kubica would complete the finishers in 17th.
On an emotional day, celebrations were understandably muted as Leclerc returned to parc ferme, but he paid tribute to late friend Anthoine Hubert, dedicating his first win in F1 to the Frenchman.
For Hamilton, he remains firmly on course for a sixth title with his lead over Bottas now 65 points after Spa.
Another Ferrari/Mercedes duel awaits in just seven days too, as F1 heads to the ‘Temple of Speed’ at Monza for the Italian Grand Prix.
Full results from Sunday’s race can be seen below:
