Championship standings before the round ART Grand Prix driver
Nyck de Vries entered the round with a thirty-point lead over
Nicholas Latifi in the drivers' championship.
Sérgio Sette Câmara was third, a further twenty-five points behind. In the teams' championship,
DAMS started the round with a sixty-five point lead over
UNI-Virtuosi Racing, and ART Grand Prix a further thirty-six points behind in third.
Driver changes Twenty drivers representing ten teams were entered into the event. Nineteen of the drivers who contested
the previous round in
Hungary returned for the Spa-Francorchamps round. The only exception was
Campos Racing driver
Arjun Maini, who left the team. Campos signed
Euroformula Open championship leader
Marino Sato to replace Maini prior to the round.
Qualifying Nyck de Vries qualified on
pole position,
Trident driver
Giuliano Alesi was running tenth when he spun into the barriers while going through Eau Rouge, damaging the rear of the car and bouncing back onto the circuit at the exit of the corner.
Ralph Boschung,
Anthoine Hubert and
Jordan King had been running eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth at the time and took evasive action. Boschung cleared Alesi's Trident by taking to the tarmac run-off on the outside of the corner and King was able to slow in time to avoid contact. Hubert attempted to go to the right of Boschung, but made contact with the Trident's right-rear wheel, puncturing Boschung's tyre and causing Hubert to lose his front wing. Hubert's car continued along the run-off and crashed into a tyre barrier with the front and right side of the car. The car snapped around and was sitting at an angle that was perpendicular to the racing line, but it remained on the tarmac run-off area. Correa hit Hubert at right angles, his
Charouz hitting Hubert's
BWT Arden in the left side of the car. Correa was estimated to be travelling at at the time of the impact. The force of the collision was enough to tear Hubert's car in half, his headrest being ejected in the process, and partly exposed Hubert's lifeless body. The front assembly of Correa's car broke away, exposing his feet; Correa's car also rolled over. Hubert's Arden pivoted around and hit the tyre barrier again, and came to a rest with its front wing and rear assembly up against the barriers while Correa's Charouz continued travelling several metres further along the circuit and came to rest upside-down on the grassy verge on the opposite side of the circuit.
Campos driver
Marino Sato braked to a complete stop to avoid cars on track, but in so doing stalled his engine and could not continue. Alesi was similarly unharmed—the accident unfolded behind him as he continued onto the Kemmel Straight—but his contact with the wall meant that his car suffered from race-ending damage and he pulled over on the approach to Les Combes. An FIA investigation into the accident found that fifteen seconds had elapsed between Alesi's initial loss of control and the cars of Hubert and Correa coming to a halt. He was reported to be conscious and lucid before undergoing surgery. His injuries ruled him out of competing for the remainder of the season. Correa was transferred to a specialist facility in the UK where he entered
acute respiratory failure brought about by
acute respiratory distress syndrome. His condition was downgraded to critical, but stable, but he was placed in a
medically-induced coma on 7 September. Correa was brought out of the coma on 20 September, and underwent surgery to save his lower right leg. The reconstructive surgery was largely deemed a success. Correa's long-term prognosis called for up to a year of rehabilitation. The feature race was not restarted and no result was issued, as per FIA regulations, as the leader had only completed one lap so the race was abandoned. The sprint race that had been planned for the following morning was cancelled after Hubert's death was announced. Hubert's death was the first fatality for a driver competing in the second tier of FIA-sanctioned formula racing since
Henry Surtees' accident in the
2009 FIA Formula Two Championship.
Response A manslaughter inquiry was opened by the
Verviers prosecutor's office on 2 September; a number of auto racing and road safety experts have been employed as advisers. The car driven by Giuliano Alesi was impounded by the authorities as part of the investigation, forcing
Trident Racing to enter a single car at
the following round in
Monza one week after the Spa-Francorchamps round. The
Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the international governing body of motorsport, launched their own investigation into the accident. Hubert and Correa's cars were provided to the FIA to allow their forensic investigation to begin in earnest. The final report was published in February 2020 and concluded that there was no single contributing factor to the accident. It stated that previous contact with another car had caused Alesi to lose pressure in his rear tyre, setting off a chain reaction of events. The report also concluded that Hubert had taken every reasonable measure to avoid the initial contact and that his death was not the result of a driver error. The team went on to prepare a car for Hubert, which was then left in the garage as a mark of respect.
Artem Markelov was named as Hubert's replacement for the final two rounds of the championship in
Sochi and
Abu Dhabi. Hubert's racing number, #19, was retired and Markelov assigned #22.
Matevos Isaakyan replaced the injured Correa at
Charouz for the final races. Hubert's number was permanently retired in .
Formula 1 driver
Daniel Ricciardo admitted that he had given serious thought to withdrawing from the
Belgian Grand Prix that took place the next day, and offered the opinion that other drivers had also considered it. Race winner
Charles Leclerc, long time friend of Hubert, dedicated the victory to him. Organisers of the Formula 2 Championship introduced an award for the best rookie driver, which was named in Hubert's honour. The managers of the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps announced that a planned redesign of the Raidillon run-off area that had been scheduled for 2022 would be brought forward. The redesign had been scheduled to be introduced to allow the circuit to host a round of the
FIM Endurance World Championship. The proposal called for the addition of a gravel trap to make the circuit suitable for motorcycle racing events sanctioned by the
Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), the international governing body of motorcycle racing. The managers argued that the gravel trap would benefit racing cars by arresting their speed when they left the circuit. ==Classification==