Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium) (AFP)

Formula 1 comes back from four weeks of vacation and will have to show on the spectacular circuit of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium that it will be able to bring a spectacle as high as during the last two races in Hungary and in Germany.

The fight between Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) and Max Verstappen (Red Bull) came to enliven a season that threatened to sink into boredom with the undivided domination of the British.

The progress of the Honda engine Red Bull, the maturity displayed by the young Dutchman, who at 21 years old knows how to be old, now come to threaten the Silver Arrows.

But Hamilton is on the road to a sixth title. With a 62-point lead over his team-mate Valtteri Bottas and 69 over Verstappen, he can see coming while there remains 9 Grand Prix to run, including that of Belgium which will be the 13th of the season.

But his boss, Toto Wolff, plays it humble: "We are leading the two championships (drivers and builders ed.) But we do not have the impression.In recent years, we have seen teams improve drastically their performance after the summer break and we must continue to push to get the maximum, "said the Austrian adding:" we must instead address the second part as a new season ".

In addition to Red Bull, Ferrari is also thirsty for victory. Neither the four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel nor his young team-mate Charles Leclerc have yet been on the top of the podium this year and now see Verstappen ahead of the championship.

Vettel is already 25 points behind the Dutchman and Leclerc at 49, and a victory at Spa - where Vettel won last year - would give color to an Italian team that seemed to almost lose track during the first part of the season. the season.

"Once you master it, it's impossible not to like the Spa circuit," says Vettel.

Like Lewis Hamilton, he won three times. However, veteran Kimi Räikkönen, now with Alfa-Romeo, is still the record holder with 4 victories, the last one 10 years ago.

The Ferrari's top speed could play in their favor on the Ardennes toboggan but, as Scuderia boss Mattia Binotto points out, "the middle part requires a well-balanced car with a lot of support", which is rather the same. of the Mercedes.

- Musical chairs -

As always in the mid-season, teams and drivers are also taking shape next year.

Mercedes dropped the first domino on Thursday by confirming Finland's Valtteri Bottas for 2020 alongside Lewis Hamilton.

Suddenly, the Frenchman Esteban Ocon, under contract Mercedes and who could have replaced Bottas, could be "lent" to Renault where he would succeed to the German Nico Hulkenberg who himself could go elsewhere, "moving" another driver.

Red Bull has already done some of the work by swapping Frenchman Pierre Gasly and Thai Alexander Albon. The first lost his seat at Red Bull to return to the sister team Toro Rosso and the second is promoted after only 12 Grand Prix with the difficult task of being up to the end of the season.

"I'm happy to be back in my Italian family," says Gasly, who can only do good luck.

Albon, for his part, could see his debut at Red Bull somewhat compromised by Honda's decision to equip his car with a new engine which would make him lose ten places on the starting grid of the GP on Sunday.

The return of holidays will also see the discussions on the new regulation of the F1 for 2021 relaunched.

It will be the first to be adopted under the direction of the American group Liberty Media as a promoter of F1 and addresses, among other things, the increase in the number of races, the control of costs, the distribution of income and the standardization of certain parts, as many topics on which teams oppose.

© 2019 AFP