Lando Norris explains how he showed up Oscar Piastri in Belgian GP qualifying showdown
Lando Norris is eyeing back-to-back 'home' race wins on Sunday after the perfect qualifying follow-up to his British Grand Prix triumph. The Brit's first career win at Silverstone last time out saw him celebrate wildly with his family.
And he hopes to do so again in the homeland of his mother, Cisca, who watched on with glee as her half-Belgian son, 25, took pole position in the Ardennes Forest. Norris was more than half-a-second slower in Sprint qualifying than team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri on Friday but got the better of the Aussie on Saturday for the one that really mattered.
"I did not have to change much, I just had to drive a little bit better and that was it," he reflected. "I just drove a tiny bit better and I just had a bit of a slipstream. [On Friday] I did not have a slipstream and it cost me three-and-a-half tenths, so it makes a big difference."
Norris had started and finished third in that Sprint race earlier in the day, and so knows full well that pole isn't always the best place to begin at Spa-Francorchamps. The long flat-out section after the first corner gives a huge slipstream, as Piastri found out when Max Verstappen stole the lead on lap one.
The Dutchman had enough pace in his Red Bull to keep the McLarens behind over the 15-lap dash. But at 44 laps the Grand Prix is nearly three-times longer and Norris refuses to believe that starting at the front is a disadvantage.
He said: "I would be stupid and there is no point in me being here if I did not think that I could win. I am here to win and, whatever the conditions are, that is my target."
Piastri, nine points ahead in the title race, felt he should have made it two poles in the same weekend but "a pretty big mistake" cost him. He said: "I felt like the potential was there and it is always frustrating when you feel like you can do it and you don't. That is how it goes sometimes, unfortunately.
"I feel like I have done a good job, just unfortunately not when it mattered today. But I feel like the pace has been really strong all weekend, so I am confident for tomorrow."
Verstappen's Sprint win for Red Bull saw life under new boss Laurent Mekies get off to the perfect start. He admitted he had to do "15 qualifying laps" to keep the quicker McLarens behind and "drove over the limit" for much of the race. And from fourth on the grid today he is not confident he can repeat the trick, no matter what the weather does.
Verstappen said: "Overall, it's not been a very good qualifying. I think it will be tough. If it's wet then you can't see anything, so you can't do anything on lap one. I hope we can fight back to the podium, but we need to be realistic and work on our own balance."
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The Guardian
36 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Oscar Piastri eases away from Norris to win rain-hit Belgian Grand Prix
Calm assurance and closure were once more the hallmarks of victory for Oscar Piastri at the Belgian Grand Prix. The 24-year-old Australian displayed purpose, conviction and touch behind the wheel to grind out a win in challenging conditions and under no little pressure in seeing off his McLaren teammate Lando Norris. The title fight will be decided between the two drivers and, as at Spa, single significant moments may prove decisive. In what was far from a thriller, Piastri won with a dominant drive to beat Norris into second and Ferrari's Charles Leclerc into third. Max Verstappen was fourth for Red Bull in the team's first race without the recently dismissed team principal Christian Horner in charge, while Lewis Hamilton made the most of the changeable, wet-dry conditions to move from 18th on the grid to finish seventh. After a delayed start of almost an hour and 20 minutes because of heavy rain in the Ardennes mountains, when racing finally began in earnest Piastri pounced to take the lead from Norris with an opportunistic and decisive move. He launched it with almost breathtaking commitment. As the pair plunged down the hill into Eau Rouge on the first racing lap in anger, Piastri scythed into the slot just under Norris's gearbox in an all or nothing, fearless display. They hurtled up through Raidillon and thence with the slipstream on the Kemmel straight it was advantage Piastri as he sped past and into the lead at Les Combes. Norris was powerless to resist and not at fault – as his team principal, Andrea Stella, noted – the driver leading the pack out on the first lap is always vulnerable; indeed a lesson Piastri had learned from the sprint race on Saturday when Verstappen pulled an identical move on him. He was aware of its import. 'I knew that lap one was probably my best chance of winning the race,' he said. 'I lifted as little as I dared through Eau Rouge and then it was enough.' Having got to the front he was relentless in grinding out a victory and even a counter-tyre strategy from Norris could not bring him quite back into contention. Yet it required a steely resolve and, with the decision to make his medium tyres last to the finish, no little finesse, as Norris chased him down on the more durable hard rubber. For all that the McLaren is easy on its rubber, Piastri eased it on with a gentle mastery. It was, then, another combative statement of intent from the Australian, demonstrating that even when he is on the back foot he retains a fierce determination. Once he had retaken the lead from second on the grid he was in assured control from the front, with the same measured, calm confidence that is almost disarming as it becomes ominously clear to his rivals that he has all the traits of a world champion in waiting. It was his sixth win from 13 races this season and for all that Norris took the previous two on the trot, really no other driver has matched the Australian's consistency. What had begun in Melbourne with a win for Norris has since become very much bossed by Piastri, who has laid down another marker that it will be remarkably hard to beat him this season, but it will be a hard-fought show. He now leads Norris by 16 points with 11 meetings remaining in a contest that increasingly looks like it will go down to the wire. Certainly Stella believed that there was little to choose between his drivers and noted that it would likely come down to the minutiae of execution that would tell for the title. Sign up to The Recap The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action after newsletter promotion Norris might consider that on his chase he dropped a little time, two lock-ups at La Source and going wide once at Pouhon but they were not enough to be truly decisive. He had closed to within 3.4sec by the end but for the final laps Piastri still had enough in the locker to hold his lead. Norris, too, conceded that he had been well beaten and that he did not believe his minor errors had made the difference. 'Oscar just did a good job [at the start], nothing more to say, committed a bit more through Eau Rouge,' he said. 'That was it, Oscar deserved it today. It's shoulda‑woulda‑coulda. Oscar deserved it and I'm sure he made a couple of mistakes, too. I couldn't have won today.' With rain having swept across the circuit on and off all day, another deluge began just before the start and the race was delayed after a single formation lap, because of the poor visibility caused by the spray. The cars returned to the pit lane for more an hour and 20 minutes until the FIA deemed it could begin behind the safety car and with a rolling start. The long delay was questioned by some with the track drying – notably Red Bull and Verstappen, who had their car set up for a wet race – but the consensus was the governing body had made the right call to err on the side of caution on a circuit that is a high-speed challenge in perfect conditions. An earlier opening in more difficult conditions would maybe have made for a more interesting race, but it is hard not to imagine that Piastri would not have exhibited similarly iron control even then as – rain or shine – the Australian very much had the measure of Spa.
Reuters
an hour ago
- Reuters
Different horsepower for Horner as Red Bull enter new era
SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium, July 27 (Reuters) - Former Red Bull team boss Christian Horner posted a video on social media of himself riding on horseback in the English countryside on the day of the Belgian Grand Prix. "Different horse power this Sunday," read the simple caption. Spa-Francorchamps marked the start of a new era for the former Formula One champions, the first race without Horner -- dismissed two weeks ago -- at the helm since Red Bull entered the sport in 2005. New boss Laurent Mekies started with a win, with Max Verstappen taking the Saturday sprint, and then a frustrating fourth place for the Dutch four-times world champion in the main Sunday grand prix. Japanese driver Yuki Tsunoda failed to score for the sixth race in a row. Apart from expressing surprise at the long delay in getting the race started, due to heavy rain, Mekies avoided any polemic. He blamed the team for Tsunoda's blank, saying the Japanese had done a great job in qualifying but was called in too late for his pitstop in a mistake that cost him three or four positions. "After two weeks at the factory, trying to meet as many people as possible, it was nice to also meet the race team," said the Frenchman when asked to assess the weekend. "To also enter into the race dynamics and see how the flows and the processes and preparation are. That was super-good in terms of getting to know the team. As you would imagine, it's a team where everything is done at the mega level." Horner's absence was the talk of the paddock but by the time the circus regroups in Budapest next week, the conversation is likely to have moved on. "I think Laurent is very good. The sport moves on quickly, so it probably won't be something that we're talking about come Monday," McLaren boss Zak Brown told Sky Sports television. "He (Horner) had fantastic results. It's a shame to kind of go out the way he did." Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff said earlier in the weekend that he would miss his old sparring partner and Netflix 'Drive to Survive' protagonist -- in a way -- and expected him to return sooner or later. "I don't think he's gone forever. I think he's going to pop up in some kind of other function," said the Austrian.
Daily Mirror
an hour ago
- Daily Mirror
Max Verstappen blasts FIA for 'ruining' Belgian GP with one key decision
The Belgian Grand Prix took a lot longer than usual as heavy rain forced a long delay at the start of the race, leaving Max Verstappen in particular unhappy with that decision Max Verstappen slammed the Formula 1 race director for his "very cautious" approach to managing conditions at the Belgian Grand Prix. The race was delayed for almost 90 minutes when heavy rain hit the Circuit Spa-Francorchamps and the FIA decided to red flag proceedings after the formation lap. That first lap took place at 3pm local time as scheduled, when the rain was still pouring. And it soon became clear that visibility was very poor as even Lando Norris, behind only the safety car on pole position, could barely see beyond the spray being thrown up into the air. And so race director Rui Marques too the decision to abort the start and call for all cars to return to the pit lane. Once he had done that, it was clear that the race would not resume for some time as more heavy rain was on the way. Eventually things got going, around 90 minutes after the originally scheduled start time. And it was perfect timing for Oscar Piastri who snatched the lead from Norris on the first lap after a rolling start and consolidated that position to win the race. Verstappen finished fourth, the same place he started, and was left to wonder what might have been had they been allowed to race in the more treacherous conditions, as he made it clear he would have preferred a bolder approach from race control. The Dutchman fumed: "We should have started miles earlier, an hour earlier. A bit of a shame. They took a very cautious approach which we spoke about after Silverstone, to be a little bit more cautious. "But, for me, this was then the other extreme. It just ruined a nice, classic wet race as well. We either still try to push for a proper wet race, or we say, 'You know what, let's just stop racing in the wet and wait for it to be dry. But that's not what you want, right? "We can still have some really cool wet racing, like we showed at Silverstone." But the race, in the end, was mostly in dry conditions and Verstappen could not find the pace he needed to reel in Charles Leclerc, who spent the whole race successfully defending the final podium place. Verstappen had won the Sprint race a day earlier, able to hold off the McLarens by driving flat out over 15 laps. But tyre degradation proved to be tricky again over a full race distance and that is what he wants his team to address going forward. He said: "The problems we have in the car in tyre management are still there, it doesn't matter what rear wing you put on the car and it also hurt us today in the race. We did the best we could, we made some changes and it was much nicer around the lap. We know what we have to work on but, unfortunately, it was not that straightforward to fix."
