Piastri snatches commanding victory in delayed Belgian GP

What began as a rain-soaked delay quickly evolved into a “lively” Belgian Grand Prix, with Oscar Piastri instantly snatching the lead from Lando Norris and never looking back to seal a commanding victory in the Ardennes.

Rain was unrelenting as the start of the Belgian Grand Prix loomed, drenching the iconic circuit to the point in which Race Control decided the Formation Lap would start behind the Safety Car.

Sixteen drivers followed the pacemaker’s lead as the reduced field rolled off the grid, with the absent four — Fernando Alonso, Kimi Antonelli, Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz — instead emerging from the pitlane after incurring power unit penalties and making late changes, however, their time on track was short-lived.

Complaints flooded in over the team radio regarding the lack of visibility, prompting Race Control to upgrade caution to a Red Flag, with the majority of drivers in agreement including pole-sitter Lando Norris, who informed his race engineer of his struggles behind the Safety Car while adding that standing water was “not too bad”.

Offering up a solution, Max Verstappen formed part of the minority of drivers who wanted to continue circulating the Circuit de Spa Francorchamps to disperse the standing water from the racing line.

“Well, that’s a bit silly, I mean, you should just run a few laps, Jesus,” the Dutchman said, having been informed of Race Control’s decision.

“They’re way too cautious, now the heavy rain is coming, and then it’s gonna be a three-hour delay.”

The 44-lap race was originally scheduled to begin at 15:00 local time in Spa, but after a lengthy one-hour and 20-minute delay caused by the horrendous weather, the cars finally returned to the track behind the Safety Car, preparing for a damp rolling start.

Piastri offered his initial thoughts on the conditions, informing the McLaren pit wall that the track was “quite a lot better than before, through Eau Rouge”.

Sitting in second position, the Australian added that “after Eau Rouge [was] still quite bad”, followed by poor conditions on the Kemmel Straight as the field — all sporting the intermediate tyre — trailed the Aston Martin Safety Car, completing a total of four laps before Norris gained control of the pack. 

Finally unleashed, it took Piastri just four corners to instate himself as the new race leader, building over a second of leeway from the location he made his move down the Kemmel Straight as Norris faulted battery concerns for his lack of defence.

Behind the McLaren duo, Charles Leclerc was quickly under pressure from the hungry Dutchman in his mirrors, compounded by a small error through Turn 8 which Verstappen was keen to capitalise on as he followed just three-tenths behind.

The Red Bull driver pulled himself alongside Leclerc on Lap 10, challenging the Ferrari though Turn 12 for the final podium position before the Ferrari driver’s fading tyres offered up a third opportunity through La Source, however, the order stayed put.

The second running Ferrari faced opposite circumstances to his teammate as he attempted to recover his race from P18 — a task he worked towards with ease when he disposed of driver after driver to promote himself five positions across five laps of racing.

With a dry line starting to form, Hamilton was the first driver to make the switch to slick tyres, pulling into the pitlane on Lap 11 to relinquish his overworked intermediates for the medium compound tyre. 

Pitting ahead of the pack proved overwhelmingly beneficial for Hamilton, who soon found his SF25 tucked comfortably within the top ten as the rest of the field followed suit.

Piastri led the next cycle of drivers into the pitlane on Lap 13, having preferential treatment from the McLaren pit crew as the #81 and #4’s on-track proximity meant only one driver could make the switch.

Rejoining the action behind his teammate, McLaren brought Norris in as the timesheets reflected the slick tyre as the quicker option, giving the in-form driver the choice of running the hard tyre through to the end of the 44-lap race. 

Norris jumped at the opportunity, committing to a one-stop strategy — barring any wet weather or Safety Car disruptions — while he trailed his teammate as the second-running McLaren.

The unlucky losers during the pitlane chaos included the likes of Yuki Tsunoda, Isack Hadjar, and the Haas duo, whose choices to withhold from venturing into the pitlane with the bulk of the field came back to bite them.

Verstappen’s slow stop also threatened to wreck his podium charge, allowing George Russell to challenge him as the Dutchman fed his concerns regarding his battery power to his stand-in race engineer. 

As the race ticked over the 22-lap mark, the second-running Mercedes driver took inspiration from the man he replaced, with Kimi Antonelli kicking into gear as he began to pick off the midfield contenders, including Franco Colapinto and the experienced Aston Martin duo. 

Back at the head of the field, Piastri had a leading interval that hovered around the eight-second mark, however, his teammate, despite running a different compound, continued to push the Australian as he recorded the then-fastest lap of the race.

Not going in Norris’ favour was a costly moment through Turn 12, where he was forced to counter-steer to correct his sliding MCL39, increasing his average lap time by 1.2 seconds.

Norris lost a further six-tenths after he locked his front tyres into the first braking zone, before his race engineer, Will Joseph, alerted the #4 to the need to manage his tyres across the final ten laps of the race.

The interval resumed its post at eight seconds with ten more tours of the Circuit de Spa Francorchamps remaining, before Norris shaved a second off the margin across the next two laps. 

He replicated that achievement over the next few laps, finding five-tenths of pace over his teammate, who approached the first back-marker, Hadjar.

The fight for the final podium position gained momentum as Verstappen neared DRS range of a frustrated Leclerc, who found himself requesting to be left alone by his team’s inconsistent communications, but the 1.2-second gap that stood between the two drivers couldn’t be closed.

A gap that could be closed was the one between the McLaren drivers in P1 and P2, however, proving bad things come in threes, a third costly mistake from Norris threw his optimistic chances of reclaiming the lead to the wind.

With two laps remaining, the #4 once again locked up into La Source, costing him 1.2 seconds on his hunt of his championship-leading teammate — the nail in the coffin for his Belgian Grand Prix hopes as Piastri unleashed two personal best laps to round out the race.

The ultimate margin between the teammates was 3.4 seconds as they took the chequered flag, returning to McLaren with mixed emotions on an overwhelmingly positive day for the dominant team.

“Nicely done. Nicely f******g done,” the chuffed 24-year-old celebrated, increasing his championship lead to 16 points after outscoring his teammate in both points-scoring events in Belgium and extending his consecutive points-scoring efforts to 30 races.

Joining the papaya drivers on the podium was Leclerc, whose steady efforts across the 44-lap race rewarded him with a third-place finish in the damp Ardennes Forest, his fifth podium of the season.

Just 1.5 seconds shy of adding to his extensive silverware collection, Verstappen was forced to settle for fourth place, a healthy 13 seconds ahead of George Russell, who never quite packed enough punch to form a solid threat to the Red Bull driver.

Albon clung to sixth place for dear life as Hamilton forged a late attack on the Williams driver, holding onto a haul of eight points as the usual rivals crossed the line just seven-tenths apart.

Running a relatively lonely race from his first and only pitstop onwards, Liam Lawson scored his third points haul of the season with a P8 finish on his first Formula 1 outing at Spa, with Gabriel Bortoleto 4.4 seconds back in his mirrors.

On an emotional weekend for the Frenchman, Pierre Gasly rounded out the Belgian Grand Prix points scorers as he took the chequered flag in tenth place, racing Ollie Bearman right to the line before the Haas rookie narrowly missed the top ten by just four-tenths.

Having to quickly put the highs and lows of the third Sprint weekend of the season behind them, the grid’s focus immediately shifts to the tamer challenge posed by the Hungaroring when F1 jumps ship to Budapest for the Hungarian Grand Prix. 

Running across August 01-03, the conventional format returns with the first of three practice sessions kicking off at 21:30 AEST on Friday.

Image: Formula 1

Belgian Grand Prix Race Results: 

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