No active driver knows the way around Spa-Francorchamps quite like Lewis Hamilton. His five wins in Belgium are one shy of Michael Schumacher's record at the circuit, and a sixth on Sunday would draw him level with the sport's most decorated Spa specialist.
The problem is where he starts. Hamilton qualified sixth, two-thousandths of a second behind Ferrari team-mate Charles Leclerc, and will have to carve through a front pack of Mercedes, Red Bull and McLaren machinery to get near the podium, let alone the top step. Spa at least offers the tools: long straights, heavy braking zones and the kind of slipstream that turns qualifying deficits into racing opportunities.
Hamilton arrives third in the championship on 147 points and fresh off a Silverstone podium behind Leclerc. A record-equalling win from row three would be one of the drives of his Ferrari era — and exactly the kind of statement his half-season has been building toward.