Formula One - Belgian Grand Prix - What Wet Tyres as Piastri bites back after winless Silverstone weekend

In the third sprint weekend of the season, a trimmed-out Verstappen took an unlikely sprint race victory before Oscar Piastri reclaimed his top spot, and delivered a flawless race.

Photo: Ran Pierse

SPRINT QUALIFYING

Times tumbled throughout the first sprint qualifying session, Isack Hadjar’s initial fastest lap of a 1:42.711 beaten by almost a second as Oscar Piastri went to the top of the times with a 1:41.769 with just five minutes remaining in the session. A late spin for Lewis Hamilton coming into the bus-stop chicane saw the wallowing seven-time champion out in the first sprint qualifying session.

Out in SQ1: Albon, Hulkenberg, Hamilton, Colapinto, Antonelli

An uneventful SQ2 session saw Max Verstappen find his way to the top of the timing boards for the first time before being beaten by Lando Norris, who set a 1:41.412.

Out in SQ2: Lawson, Tsunoda, Russell, Alonso, Stroll

All the action in sprint qualifying came after the clock had hit zero when Lando Norris provisionally put himself on pole with a 1:41.128, but he was immediately beaten by Max Verstappen who set a 1:40.987 to become the first driver into the 1:40’s, however Oscar Piastri blew this time out of the water, setting a 1:40.510.

Top 10: Piastri, Verstappen, Norris, Leclerc, Ocon, Sainz, Bearman, Gasly, Hadjar, Bortoleto

Photo: Dimitar Dilkoff

SPRINT RACE

Before the sprint race began, Pierre Gasly was forced into the garage with a suspected water leak. He would eventually come back out on track but was four laps down.

As the sprint race got underway, Piastri got a brilliant start with Verstappen unable to make a move at turn one, unfortunately for Piastri his start and launch out of La Source was not enough to counter the ultra-low drag setup on the Red Bull of Verstappen, who slipped past the McLaren before they had even come through the kink on the Kemmel Straight. Leclerc also passed the McLaren of Norris on the Kemmel Straight, but only held the position for three laps before Norris got back past with the help of DRS.

The rest of the race saw very little action, with Verstappen taking a relatively comfortable win ahead of Piastri and Norris. Rounding out the top eight were Charles Leclerc, Esteban Ocon, Carlos Sainz, Oliver Bearman and Isack Hadjar.

Photo: Mark Sutton

FEATURE RACE QUALIFYING

The first feature race qualifying session saw a relatively calm start, with all the drivers who were expected to get through, doing so, some notable first qualifying performances came from Liam Lawson and Carlos Sainz who both outperformed their expectations. After the clock hit zero, Hamilton’s best lap time was deleted for a track limits infringement at Radillon, which promoted Gabriel Bortoleto into the top fifteen, and through to Q2.

Out in Q1: Hamilton, Colapinto, Antonelli, Alonso, Stroll

In qualifying two, Verstappen was the early pace-setter with a 1:40.951, before he was pipped by both Piastri and Norris who were 1-2 respectfully at the end of the session.

Out in Q2: Ocon, Bearman, Gasly, Hulkenberg, Sainz

Qualifying three saw a similar start to that of qualifying two, with Verstappen setting an early competitive lap time before being beaten by three-tenths by Norris and a further two-tenths by Piastri, who was seemingly on a mission of dominance over his teammate following the loss of the Silverstone Grand Prix. The final laps saw Norris improve to overall pole position, on a lap that broke the Spa-Francorchamps lap record that had, until this point, been held by the almighty Mercedes-AMG W11.

Top 10: Norris, Piastri, Leclerc, Verstappen, Russell, Hadjar, Lawson, Tsunoda, Albon, Bortoleto

Photo: Dimitar Dilkoff

FEATURE RACE

A typical wet weather start at Spa-Francorchamps saw the initial race start called off, with visibility suffering. The delay allowed for another front of rain to drench the track, meaning the race start was delayed for over an hour.

After four laps behind the safety car, during which time a dry line had already begun to appear, the race finally got underway with a rolling start, with Norris getting an incredible launch from the rolling start, however this would later see him fall foul of teammate Piastri’s battery capacity. Norris was overtaken by Piastri on the Kemmel straight as the team informed him that he had used all of his battery allowance for the lap during the race start. 

On what was only the second lap of racing but the sixth lap of the race, George Russell overtook Alexander Albon for fifth under braking into the Les Combes chicane, whilst further down the order Hamilton was charging through the field, making back-to-back overtakes across two laps to move from seventeenth the thirteenth on the road.

Photo: Simon Wohlfahrt

On lap eleven Hamilton’s teammate Leclerc almost fell foul to an off-track excursion at La Source but managed to stay on track and, vitally, ahead of the chasing Max Verstappen. Just a lap later and Hamilton was the first to make the call for slick tyres, he was followed into the pitlane by Gasly, Hulkenberg and Alonso, on lap thirteen Piastri also made the call to pit along with Leclerc, Verstappen, Russell, Albon, Lawson, Bortoleto, Bearman, Colapinto, Sainz, Antonelli and Stroll. There was an investigation for an unsafe release for Leclerc in front of Albon but this was ruled as an NFA just a couple of laps after the incident. On lap fourteen the remaining cars pit, Norris suffered a slow front-left tire change which widened the gap that Piastri had made by pitting onto slicks on the previous lap.

Photo: Clive Rose

On lap twenty Bortoleto overtook teammate Nico Hulkenberg as the Stake Sauber cars swapped positions for ninth and tenth. On lap thirty four Hulkenberg was moving back through the pack after being forced to pit again and overtook Ocon for fourteenth.

As the checkered flag waved, Oscar Piastri took the top spot of the podium in a dominant performance, with McLaren securing a 1-2 with Norris coming home in second. Charles Leclerc finished in third ahead of reigning-champion Max Verstappen. The Mercedes-powered duo of George Russell and Alex Albon finished fifth and sixth ahead of Lewis Hamilton who timed his pitstop perfectly to switch to slick tyres. Liam Lawson finished eighth ahead of Gabriel Bortoleto and Pierre Gasly who rounded out the top ten.

ONTO HUNGARY

We now head to the Hungarian Grand Prix, at the newly upgraded and reconstructed Hungaroring at the Hungarian capital of Budapest, where downforce is everything.

Oscar Piastri re-claimed his lost points from the British Grand Prix weekend by claiming the win at Spa and now leads the championship by sixteen points over Lando Norris. McLaren have continued to pull away in the constructors championship, now leading by 268 points over Ferrari who also gained on Mercedes who they now lead by 28 points. Red Bull made some gains back on Mercedes with Verstappen's sprint race win, they now trail the silver arrows by just 28 points.