Monday, 28 July 2025
Sunday, 27 July 2025
OSCAR PIASTRI SHOWS ALL HIS NOUS TO WIN DELAYED BELGIAN GRAND PRIX LANDO NORRIS
Oscar Piastri wins the Belgian Grand Prix from his McLaren teammate Lando Norris after a Lap 1 overtake at Spa
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| Race winner Oscar Piastri celebrates in parc ferme at the F1 2025 Belgian Grand Prix | McLaren F1 Team |
Oscar Piastri widened his gap at the top of the Formula 1 2025 drivers’ championship by beating McLaren teammate Lando Norris to the line at the Belgian Grand Prix.
In a race that started almost an hour and a half later than planned due to rain reducing the drivers’ visibility, the first corner proved to be the major difference between the McLaren‘s as pole-sitter Norris lost time and allowed his teammate to construct an overtake.
After moving on to the slick tyres, Norris couldn’t quite eat into Piastri‘s margin with enough ferocity and had to settle for second, with Charles Leclerc, Max Verstappen and George Russell rounding out the top five.
Towards the end of the original formation lap, a red flag was thrown due to the poor visibility and the cars funnelled into the pit lane. Norris reported on the radio that the standing water was not an issue, but he could barely see behind the safety car.
An hour and 20 minutes later, the cars were back on track for two laps behind the safety car. The sky over Spa was largely blue by this stage. After four laps behind the safety car, the race began with a rolling start and it only took until just after Eau Rouge for Piastri to get past his teammate and take the lead.
Norris was clearly struggling for grip, and Leclerc and Verstappen knew it. They were right on the back of Norris‘s McLaren, whilst he was complaining about a lack of electrical energy. Russell also made light work of Alex Albon and moved into P5, meaning he could then chase the leading four drivers.
Norris soon found his groove and started to catch Piastri and pull away from Leclerc and Verstappen, whilst the Ferrari driver ran wide on a couple of occasions and allowed Verstappen to start applying the pressure. With no more rain expected, the dilemma for the teams became clear. Almost every driver had dull inters on, but the track was drying.
One driver who came alive in the tricky conditions was Lewis Hamilton, who overtook three cars in one lap and was quickly knocking on the door of the points positions. Despite that pace, he was first to move onto slicks as he pitted for mediums on Lap 12, and he was followed by a host of cars towards the back of the grid.
The McLaren‘s quickly showed the pace of their car by pulloing out a +10 second gap over Leclerc and Verstappen. Piastri was first to pit from the frontrunners on Lap 13, though, with Leclerc and Verstappen following him. Norris went round for another lap and after he put the hard tyre on in an effort to go till the end, he emerged seven seconds behind Piastri, a gap that swiftly became 8.5 seconds as he warmed them up.
Hamilton timed his pit stop perfectly and was in P7 by Lap 14, having started from the pit lane. He continued to show pace and Leclerc was keeping himself ahead of Verstappen, meaning a healthy points haul for Ferrari looked like a very real possibility.
It soon emerged that both McLaren‘s would be aiming to make it to the end on their current tyres, but that would likely mean that Piastri had to do some extra management later in the race which would be Norris‘ opportunity to get past.
Once the grid had moved onto the lick tyres, the race largely stayed the same. Everybody was aware that reaching the end of the race without stopping again was possible, meaning no drivers were pushing particularly hard. A safety car certainly would have seen the grid dive into the pits.
Small errors add up to cost Norris
With 10 laps to go, Norris on the hard tyre did start to eat into Piastri‘s margin. He gained six tenths on Lap 33, with Piastri having to concentrate on keeping his mediums alive. Hamilton‘s charge up to seventh saw him get stuck behind Albon‘s Williams.
The final five laps saw Norris really pick up the pace and the gap was soon beneath four seconds. At the same time Verstappen was getting closer to the back of Leclerc, where he had spent the entire grand prix.
Ultimately, however, a handful of unnecessary errors proved to be what handed his teammate the victory. The slide at the start of the race which allowed Piastri through was followed by a lock-up and an adventure off line later in the race which cumulatively cost him around two seconds.
When he did get close to Piastri on Lap 43, he locked up again and it cost him 1.4 seconds. Throw in the fact that his pit stop was slow thanks to the front left not behaving, and Piastri seemed destined for the victory.
Considering Norris started the race on pole position and has been in a positive patch of form which closed the gap in the drivers’ championship, this was a huge victory for Piastri and he never put a foot wrong in Belgium. That gap now widens to 16 points and it is another reminder that the fight will surely go down to the end of the season.
Leclerc successfully held Verstappen off to take the final podium place, whilst Hamilton could not climb any higher than P7.
- Euan Burns
Saturday, 26 July 2025
LANDO NORRIS PIPS MCLAREN TEAM-MATE OSCAR PIASTRI TO BELGIAN GRAND PRIX POLE
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| Lando Norris will be aiming to win a third grand prix in a row on Sunday as he chases down championship leader Oscar Piastri |
Lando Norris will start from pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix in his bid to seal a hat-trick of consecutive victories after beating championship rival Oscar Piastri to top spot.
Norris finished third, a place behind McLaren team-mate Piastri in the earlier sprint race at Spa-Francorchamps, but the British driver bounced back to secure his second pole in three races.
Charles Leclerc took third for Ferrari but team-mate Lewis Hamilton's weekend took another nightmare twist after he qualified only 16th.
Max Verstappen - who won the first Formula One race staged following Christian Horner's dismissal as Red Bull team principal in Saturday's 15-lap dash - was fourth, one position clear of Williams' Alex Albon, with George Russell sixth for Mercedes.
Piastri extended his championship advantage over Norris from eight points to nine and appeared to hold the upper hand over his team-mate heading into qualifying.
However, Norris delivered with his first lap of Q3 to hold a near two-tenth advantage over Piastri heading into the concluding runs and - although he failed to improve, and Piastri did - it was enough to take first place as he looks to build on his wins in Austria and Silverstone.
Norris qualified six tenths behind Piastri in Friday's qualifying and he said: "Everyone was quite worried after yesterday. But I was always confident, so it is nice to get back on top.
"The car has been flying all weekend and Oscar and I have been pushing each other a lot. You can see each other's strengths and weaknesses (on the shared team data) so that makes it a tough battle."
Rain is forecast for Sunday's 44-lap race, and Norris continued: "I prefer it to stay dry. But I don't mind if it is wet, or dry, or somewhere in the middle. I just hope it is an exciting race."
Hamilton, who started 18th and finished 15th in the earlier sprint race earlier, was eliminated in Q1 for Sunday's main event after his best lap was chalked off by the stewards.
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| It's been a weekend to forget so far for Lewis Hamilton |
The seven-time world champion thought he had done enough to haul his Ferrari into the next phase of qualifying when he posted the seventh best time. But moments later, his lap was deleted after he was adjudged to have run all four wheels of his Ferrari off the circuit at Raidillon. That dropped him way down the order.
"Is everything OK?" Hamilton asked on the radio. "Track limits," replied Hamilton's race engineer, Ricardo Adami.
Am I out?" Hamilton replied. "Lap time is deleted, P16," came the response.
There was no response from the 40-year-old who is left to reflect on another sobering result of his difficult start to life at Ferrari.
Hamilton, who spun in qualifying for the sprint, enters Sunday's race without a podium for Ferrari - the deepest he has gone into a season in his career without a top-three finish.
Hamilton's replacement at Mercedes, Kimi Antonelli, also failed to emerge from Q1 and will start 18th, with both Aston Martins on the final row of the grid following a dismal qualifying session for the British team.
Fernando Alonso will line up from 19th, with team-mate Lance Stroll 20th and last.
Ollie Bearman finished an impressive seventh in the sprint, but then qualified 12th as he complained the start of his final lap was compromised by Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda.
- RTÊ
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