Piastri secures front row start for Belgian GP Sprint

Oscar Piastri is set to start tonight’s Sprint race from second on the grid after qualifying just 11 milliseconds behind Max Verstappen, braving an exciting wet-dry Sprint Shootout to secure his best start of the season.

Heavy rainfall at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps led to a delayed start to this evening’s Sprint Shootout.

The FIA gave the session the green light after a long 35-minute wait, having allowed for all safety precautions to be covered in the highly changeable Belgian conditions.

Sprint Qualifying 1: 

Mercedes were the first cars to leave their garages, with Lewis Hamilton and George Russell queuing in the pit lane with 6 minutes to the green light.

They were quickly accompanied by the Alfa Romeo and Haas duos, as the session kicked off.

With a reduced 12-minute duration making up SQ1, the drivers were quick to start punching in times, all testing grip levels and battling low visibility on the intermediate tyre.

Hamilton wrestled his way through the lap, setting the first timed lap of the session as a 2:02.297, with his teammate a big 2.770s behind.

Charles Leclerc monetarily promoted himself to the top of the timing sheets before Piastri got his session off to a blazing start with the fastest time of 2:01.311.

Going nearly a second faster than Piastri, Max Verstappen jumped to the top of the order, unaffected by an earlier impeding incident involving his 2021 rival. 

Carlos Sainz set the first sub-2 minute time, and despite improving to P1, found himself out of the top three quickest laps in the final minutes.

Kevin Magnussen abandoned his first flying lap attempt, only returning to the track with under 4 minutes on the clock.

Both the Dane and his Haas teammate were yet to set times until the final moments, and with Hulkenberg completely mistiming his last run, they failed to advance to SQ2.

With 2 minutes remaining in SQ1, Lando Norris found himself in the elimination zone.

He managed to work his McLaren into a risky P13, however, made it through to the next round with a time just slightly behind his teammate in P11.

Alex Albon was one of the first surprise players to improve, putting his FW45 into P2 from P15 in a lap riddled with purple sectors.

Lewis Hamilton finished with the second quickest time, seconds clear of the elimination zone, however, it was a different story for his teammate who just scrapped by in P15.

Yuki Tsunoda was the first to be knocked out, ending the session multiple places behind Daniel Ricciardo, a reversed scenario from yesterday’s Grand Prix qualifying results. 

The Japanese driver was joined by both Haas cars and Alfa Romeos in sitting out SQ2.

Sprint Qualifying 2:

Ricciardo was the first to head back out on track which was now forming a strong dry racing line, setting a time over 2 seconds quicker than his SQ1 time.

Lando Norris then demoted the sole remaining AlphaTauri, leading his former teammate by eight-tenths before the rest of the grid’s times began rolling in.

The final moments of the session were, however, disrupted. 

Lance Stroll was the first and only driver in SQ2 to prematurely run on the slick tyre, forced to sport the Medium compound tyre in the wet conditions. 

The track proved itself unready for that step, with the Aston Martin driver heading straight into the wall at Turn 8, prompting a red flag with 29s on the board.

Due to the later incident, first attempts were the only run that counted.

Max Verstappen ended SQ2 with the quickest time of 1:55.200, over six-tenths ahead of Hamilton and his teammate.

The top ten drivers making it through to the final session of the Sprint shootout were a total composition of 5 constructors: Red Bull, Mercedes, Alpine, Ferrari and McLaren. 

Ricciardo lacked any luck when the red flag fell, just missing the cut-off time in P11, ahead of four drivers who failed to put a time on the board.

Sprint Qualifying 3:

The red-marked soft compound proved the popular tyre choice in the final fight Sprint pole.

Tomorrow’s pole man, Leclerc, was the first to set off on his flying lap, however, crossing the line with a time well beyond a second slower than the top spot. 

After the first round of times had been set, Hamilton held provisional Sprint pole, a slim 0.088s ahead of Verstappen.

Perez only managed a time quick enough for P8 as he frustratingly encountered a handful of parked cars in the final chicane.

With 2 minutes to go, cool-down laps were well underway.

Drivers tussled for track position in the final sector, with George Russell just one of the few to successfully make up ground on his competitors, and teammate.

Into the first turn, Russell locked up and ran wide, recommencing his lap only meters ahead of his quicker teammate.

The moment left Hamilton unhappy, requesting his team to instruct the #63 car to abandon its lap and let him through.

It ruined both drivers starting positions, seeing Mercedes set to start from P7 and P10.

Max Verstappen took Sprint pole, and kept it this time out with his 5-place grid penalty not applied for the Sprint race.

A painful 0.011s behind was Oscar Piastri whose stellar Sector 2 helped secured the young Australian a front-row start in tonight’s event.

Carlos Sainz completes the top three, being just 0.035s behind Verstappen.

He will line up alongside his teammate who had a few costly twitches on his final run.

Norris slots in behind Leclerc, joined by the lead Alpine of Pierre Gasly on Row 3.

Sergio Perez drifted down to eighth place, ahead of Esteban Ocon.

Download the full F1 Belgian Grand Prix event guide HERE with track stats and facts and a full event schedule, plus our extensive driver profiles.

For more of the latest motorsport news, pick up the latest issue of AUTO ACTION.

Auto Action, Australia’s independent voice of motorsport.

PODCAST: The latest episode of the Auto Action RevLimiter podcast is out now!

In the latest episode, the team discuss Supercars parts & parity with an SMP preview. F1’s Oscar & Dan show, and the Aussie’s take on NASCAR!

Listen on your podcast app of choice or here on the Auto Action RevLimiter podcast.