Lewis Hamilton’s eerily terrible record at the Belgian GP at Spa
Contact with Fernando Alonso on the first lap saw the Mercedes driver knocked into the air before he retired from the race shortly afterwards.
A remarkably bad stat emerged in the aftermath.
Hamilton has retired on the first lap of an F1 race five times in his career - but three of those occasions have been at Spa.
The first time was in 2009 when Hamilton was caught up in an incident with Romain Grosjean and Jenson Button.
Three years later, Grosjean was again involved. He cut across Hamilton causing both drivers to retire, along with Alonso and Sergio Perez.
Another F1 record remains in Hamilton’s hands - he has won a race every season of his career but has not yet done so in 2022.
Hamilton and Mercedes will hope for better luck in their 2023 season.
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
