Several MotoGP manufacturers are not happy that KTM will be permitted to develop its engines ahead of the 2021 season, with fears it is working on a "super engine".

KTM and Aprilia are permitted by the regulations to be exempt from the engine development freeze imposed on non-concession manufacturers Honda, Yamaha, Ducati and Suzuki.

However, as part of cost-saving measures in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, all manufacturers agreed to a freeze on engine development.

KTM will be allowed to develop its engines for next year now it has lost its results-based concessions as a result of Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira's wins at the Czech and Styrian Grands Prix.

But this is a move that has angered several rival manufacturers, as a source present at the manufacturers' association meeting ahead of the Styrian GP where KTM was granted dispensation to develop its engines explained to Autosport.

"We believe that KTM is preparing a super engine for 2021," they said.

"Unlike the rest, they are going to be able to open and touch up the engine without any limitation.

"In fact, they can make it [a] whole [new one] if they want."

Autosport understands that the original MSMA proposal was to allow KTM to continue running with the two extra engines it currently does now - meaning it would have nine assuming 2021 is a normal 20-race calendar, while its rivals would only have seven - after it raised concerns about the durability of its current engine designs.

With no unanimous position reached by the six manufacturers, the executives of the Grand Prix Commission intervened by citing the new regulations regarding homologated parts - of which the engine and aerodynamic fairings are categorised.

The rule states: "Any manufacturer that has concessions in 2020 and that starts 2021 without them, will be subject to the homologation regulations of its engine from the first event of 2021, where that specification (that of 2021) will have to be presented to the Technical Director."

This has built up a lot of resentment towards KTM, with some upset at the advantage KTM will be able to gain in being allowed to develop its engine while the rest will have to use their current versions for the entirety of 2021.

Johann Zarco thinks he's "ready" to step up to the factory Ducati team in 2021, but believes he needs to score more MotoGP podiums before being considered.

The double Moto2 world champion joined the Ducati fold for 2020 after signing a deal directly with it to join the satellite Avintia squad on a year-old Desmosedici.

This came after he quit his two-year works KTM deal halfway through last year, before finding refuge at LCR as Takaaki Nakagami's injury replacement for the last three races.

Zarco has since scored Avintia's first pole position and podium finish when he placed third in the Czech GP, while putting his GP19 third on the grid for the Styrian Grand Prix - although had to start from pitlane as punishment for his collision with Franco Morbidelli at the previous week's Austrian GP.

The Frenchman will remain a Ducati rider in 2021, though it is not clear yet where he will be placed, with a move to Pramac or remaining at Avintia with added support the likely options.

With Andrea Dovizioso leaving Ducati at the end of the year, Zarco is in the frame for a place alongside Jack Miller at the works squad - though he feels he needs to show he can fight for the podium on the Ducati more first before making that step.

"It's pretty good news that I know I can continue with Ducati next year," Zarco said.

"But they still need time to decide where to put the riders, and clearly the factory bike is always a dream bike.

"And with what I learned already from my experience in a factory team and the mistakes I did also, because I did a few mistakes, I think I would be ready to go [back] on the factory bike.

"But first of all I need to do more podiums and fight more for - not for victory - but be really constant, fighting for the podiums to deserve the factory bike.

"The Ducati team are losing Dovizioso, and they can have it with Jack, but if they have two riders able to fight for podiums, this would be the main thing.

"Clearly the dream is the factory bike but staying with Ducati is the main thing, because a few months before we were just thinking with the Avintia team, it would have been a very complicated year and we see that with the support of Ducati I am doing well.

"It's pretty good for the team and then me now I have the future a little bit more fixed, so I can only smile."

PLUS: Why Dovizioso's MotoGP replacement shouldn't be Lorenzo

Zarco was critical of Avintia last November when rumours of him joining the squad first emerged, and he recently admitted he was still correct to have reservations about the team.

Also in the frame for the works Ducati seat is Pramac's Francesco Bagnaia, who has been offered a new two-year deal to remain within the Italian marque's ranks.

Ex-Ducati rider and three-time MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo has also been linked to the seat.

Ducati is set to make a decision on its full 2021 line-up ahead of next weekend's San Marino Grand Prix.

Honda will not qualify for concessions for the 2021 MotoGP season even if it fails to score a podium in a so-far tough 2020 campaign.

For the first time since 2008, no Honda rider has scored a podium in the first five races of a season, with the best-placed HRC rider in the standings LCR's Takaaki Nakagami on the year-old RC213V in sixth on 46 points.

The top 2020 RC213V runner is rookie Alex Marquez having scored just 15 points, while LCR's Cal Crutchlow sits in 21st with just seven points to his name.

Honda was dealt a major blow when world champion Marc Marquez broke his arm at the Spanish Grand Prix and has been ruled out since, with HRC confirming he will be sidelined for at least another two months.

Should Honda fail to achieve a podium this season and gain no concession points, under normal circumstances it would qualify for concession benefits for 2021.

Due to the 2020 season being shortened to 14 races from 20 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the concession rule was tweaked for this year so that they could only be lost and not gained.

This is why Honda will not benefit from concessions in 2021 should its miserable 2020 season continue.

Results-based concessions were introduced into the regulations in 2014, whereby new manufacturers or those who haven't won a dry grand prix since 2013 are afforded certain benefits.

Currently, those concession benefits are extra engines - nine instead of seven - and exemption from the ban on in-season engine development for non-concession manufacturers, as well as the ability to introduce more than one aerodynamic fairing update during a campaign.

Concession manufacturers are also permitted to six wildcard entries instead of three, and are allowed to freely test with race riders during the year.

Should a concession manufacturer gain six concession points across a season, with three awarded for a win, two for second and one for third, those benefits are stripped away for the following season - except the unrestricted testing, which is cancelled with immediate effect.

Though wet results were exempt from being awarded with concession points, that now no longer applies.

Ducati was the first concession manufacturer to lose them for the 2016 season, followed by Suzuki in 2017 and again for 2019 after a podium-less 2017 saw the Japanese marque gain them back for 2018.

KTM is the latest manufacturer to lose concessions, with Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira winning at Brno and Red Bull Ring in the space of three weeks gaining the Austrian marque the required six concession points.

Given the engine freeze in place for all manufacturers this year as part of COVID-19-related cost-saving measures, the manufacturers' association will allow KTM to unseal its engines to develop them ahead of them being homologated again ahead of the first round of the 2021 campaign.

Of the six manufacturers on the grid, only Aprilia will benefit from concessions in 2021.

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton dominated the Belgian Grand Prix to take his fifth victory in seven races this year and the 89th of his career.

The victory puts Hamilton 48 points - almost two clear wins - ahead of Verstappen in the championship.

The Briton is two victories away from Michael Schumacher's all-time record and set to equal his seven titles.

Total domination

It was another imperious performance from Hamilton, his fifth win in the last six races.

He took pole position from Bottas by more than half a second on Saturday, held on in front on the first lap, always a challenge at Spa with the long run from the La Source hairpin up the hill to Les Combes, and never looked back.

He is turning the season into one of total domination and looks unbeatable as he seeks to make Formula 1 history.

It was a staid race at the front, Hamilton too quick for Bottas and the Finn with enough to hold off Verstappen, as all three measured their pace to ensure their tyres held on for a long final stint after being forced into an early pit stop because of a safety car.

That was triggered on lap 10 when Antonio Giovinazzi lost control of his Alfa Romeo at the exit of the Fagnes chicane and bounced back onto the track, a stray front wheel from his car also wiping out George Russell's Williams.

It was the second Belgian Grand Prix in succession in which the Italian has crashed out on his own.

That meant a stop for all the leaders, and as the race ticked on Hamilton began to express his concerns about his right front tyre, his mind on the blow-out on the final lap that almost cost him victory at Silverstone last month.

In the end, though, he had everything under control, as he seems to have for the season as a whole.

Behind the top three

Daniel Ricciardo drove an excellent race in the Renault to turn his fourth place on the grid into the same result, well clear of the rest of the field, headed in the end by his team-mate Esteban Ocon, who took fifth place from Red Bull's Alexander Albon on the final lap.

Albon managed to hold off McLaren's Lando Norris, who made it a three-way battle between them in the closing laps.

Alpha Tauri's Pierre Gasly and the Racing Points of Lance Stroll and Sergio Perez completed the top 10, Gasly and Perez using off-set strategies and not stopping under the safety car but fighting back through the field after later stops with fresher tyres.

Oh, Ferrari

It was a dire race for Ferrari, who started 13th and 14th and finished in the same positions, with Sebastian Vettel ahead of Charles Leclerc, both cars beaten by the Ferrari-engined Alfa Romeo of Kimi Raikkonen.

Leclerc made a great start to move upon to eighth place on the first lap from 13th on the grid, but the car's lack of straight-line speed meant he dropped back down the field, cars picking him off on consecutive laps.

Ferrari switched him to a two-stop strategy, which dropped him to the back, but even so he took several laps to pass Romain Grosjean's Ferrari-powered Haas in the closing stages.

Driver of the day

What happens next?

Another weekend, another race - in Italy at historic Monza. Hamilton is on a roll, and Ferrari could even be in worse shape there than they were at Spa.

What they said

Lewis Hamilton: "It wasn't the easiest of races. I had a lock up into Turn 5 which started to give a bit of vibration and the tyre temps were slowly dropping. I am 35 going towards 36 but I feel better than ever. That is a positive and I am really grateful to the team."

Valtteri Bottas: "Of course at the start it would have been a good opportunity but Lewis played it well and I couldn't really get a momentum. I think Lewis was faultless today and yesterday he was quick. It was a clean weekend for me. I'm just happy there's an opportunity again next weekend."

Max Verstappen: "It was pretty boring. Not much to do. I couldn't keep up with them when they started pushing. The last eight laps I was just backing it out and saving the tyres. It was not really enjoyable out there today. It was a bit lonely."

This one meant a lot - and for Lewis Hamilton it was all about the context.

No, it was what it said about the strength of Formula 1's only black racing driver, on a day on which an iconic black actor had died, in a year in which the struggle of minorities for fairness and equality has finally come to the prominence it should have had long ago.

Chadwick Boseman, the American actor who died on Friday of colon cancer, was most famous for the movie Black Panther, a hugely significant landmark in film history for depicting a black man as a superhero.

When Hamilton woke up on Saturday morning in Belgium, he heard about the death of a man he had met, and who represented so much. After the initial shock and sadness, Hamilton headed into work wanting to make a point. And he did so powerfully, first on the track, and then off it.

His two laps in the final session of qualifying were things of beauty, the first 0.578 seconds clear of Bottas, the second 0.511secs up on the Finn's improved time.

"Those laps were some of my… I couldn't do any better, really," Hamilton said. "It's not always the case you are able to do that.

"We got the car in a really good place and then it was just about building. Each lap was just getting better and better.

"Q3, run two, because I had that gap in the first one I was able to extend a little bit further. I wasn't expecting that but the lap was beautiful. I can't wait to watch it back.

"It was a really special one for me. I wanted it to be perfect, to show strength. I wanted to be out front on my own. That's what I chose, to make it significant, to make it important and impactful.

"Because today's a special day, to be able to dedicate it to Chadwick. I feel very honoured to be able to do that."

Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff described Hamilton's qualifying as "extra-terrestrial again", adding: "Like many other high performance people, we function well on adversity and I can relate to it because we have discussed it.

"We are all a little bit similar - the more that is thrown at you, the better you get. And we definitely see that with Lewis this season.

"With all the craziness that is happening in the world and all these tragedies, he has certainly been driven by these circumstances to provide his answers to what's happening.

"He has the possibility of becoming the greatest champion in F1 and he is very much carrying that energy and responsibility that he wants to continue to be a role model and an inspiration for the many people who look up to him."

'Black Panther really moved a generation'

Hamilton went on to explain why the performance was so important, in the context of the film and its star, and this tumultuous year.

"I can totally understand why some people may not be able to understand it," he said. "I remember as a kid, superheroes - they're just super, aren't they?

"I always said I wanted to be Ayrton Senna or Superman. Superman was my favourite being in the world because he had such good morals, saving people and strength and all the things humans wish we could have.

"But what I do remember was there was no action hero the same colour as me.

"In a lot of scenarios around the world, there is under-representation. Young kids sometimes - if you can't see it, you sometimes think it's not possible.

"What he did with Black Panther, it really moved a generation, not only the younger generation but also the older generation.

"It signified an incredible importance of a shift in the film industry. These young kids can now see it is possible to have a black super hero out there. It was a movie that had many black actors also.

"It is not the only great one he has done. He did so much in such a short space of time and he did it while he was fighting cancer and that just shows the strength he had.

"It is such an important time in history when we are still fighting police brutality and inequality and he was one of those shining stars that signified power and strength. It has been an emotional day."

This has been another momentous week in the struggle for equality and against police brutality towards black men, particularly in the USA.

The death of George Floyd in May at the knee of a policeman profoundly moved Hamilton and led to F1's drive against racism from the start of this season, in which Hamilton has been at the forefront.

Then, last Sunday, another incident, in which James Blake was shot seven times in the back by a policeman in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and was left paralysed.

Arriving in Belgium, Hamilton was asked if he had considered following the example of fellow sports stars in the States and boycotting the race.

"It is a shame that is what's needed over there in order to get a reaction," he said. "But that is in America, and I don't know really if me doing anything here will particularly have any effect."

Hamilton is making his point in his own way, and powerfully he did it, too.

The race ahead

Starting from pole, Hamilton is favourite for the win, but leading is not always the place a driver wants to be on the long run from La Source hairpin, through Eau Rouge, to the Les Combes chicane on lap one at Spa.

Hamilton lost the lead to Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari there in 2018, and he won't want to do it again.

Behind him, Bottas knows his hopes of the championship are fading fast - he starts the race not only 43 points behind Hamilton, but also six adrift of Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who came so close to beating Bottas to a place on the front row on Saturday.

Verstappen has now beaten Bottas in the past four consecutive races, which does not look good on the Finn, whose car is clearly faster. So there is honour at stake there as well as points.

Rain is also threatening, as it does so often at Spa, although Verstappen said: "Dry or wet it won't make a difference, the result will be pretty similar." He's clearly not expecting to be able to mount much of a threat to Hamilton. But that won't stop him trying.

Meanwhile, Wolff is wary of Daniel Ricciardo, outstanding in putting the Renault fourth, and running a low-downforce set-up that has made that car the fastest on the straights all weekend. He, too, will be a factor up that hill on lap one.

The red tractor

Ferrari said before arriving in Belgium that they were expecting a difficult weekend - one of the calendar's most power-sensitive circuits was always going to pose difficulties for a car lacking straight-line speed.

But still it was a shock to see the red cars quite as slow as they were.

For a time, it appeared as if they might even not make it out of first qualifying - particularly when Charles Leclerc and Sebastian Vettel finished final practice 17th and plumb last.

Leclerc, lacking a tow in the first session, very nearly didn't - he was 15th and the last man to make it through. In the end, the Ferraris start the race in 13th and 14th places, Leclerc ahead as usual.

Lest we forget, Leclerc won this race from pole last year, and the two Ferraris locked out the front row.

This, then, was a stark reminder of how much Ferrari have lost in engine performance since first a rule clarification at the US Grand Prix last year that brought to an end a run of six poles, and then a secret settlement over the winter between the team and governing body the FIA, which said it had concerns that the Ferrari engine was not always running legally in 2019.

Ferrari dispute that claim, pointing out that if there was evidence that they had broken the rules, they would have been disqualified.

What can be said with certainty, though, is that whatever they got away with last year, they can't this year. And to make matters worse, the car itself isn't much cop either.

Leclerc and Vettel cut dejected figures after qualifying. But they know this will not be a one-off. Their home race at Monza next weekend is on a track that will suit the Ferrari even less.

Not only that, but engines are frozen for this season, with only reliability modifications permitted.

Teams are allowed one engine performance upgrade for the start of next season. Ferrari had better make it a good one, or they are staring at this for another year and more.