Belgian GP result: Lando Norris gamble fails as Lewis Hamilton stars from back of grid
Everyone at Circuit Spa-Francorchamps was made to wait for things to get going as heavy rain at one of motorsport's most iconic but dangerous venues made race control nervous. Drivers reported poor visibility on the formation lap and so the race was delayed, by around 90 minutes in the end, while the worst of the wet weather passed over.
A rolling start worked in favour of pole-sitter Norris, but he was caught napping by Piastri who swept past on the first lap of racing. He got the move done at turn five, the same place he had lost the Sprint race to Max Verstappen a day earlier, and this time was on the right side of the race-winning move.
Norris gambled on hard tyres when the track dried while everyone else went for mediums. And while that meant he was the faster McLaren in the latter stages, Piastri had been able to look after his yellow-walled tyres beautifully in clean air and had forged a large enough gap to make his sure his rival's charge would be in vain.
Charles Leclerc, who had beaten Verstappen to third place in qualifying, finished the race in that same position ahead of the Dutchman. And it was a better day too for Lewis Hamilton who had endured a wretched qualifying result and started from the pit lane, but drove well to recover to seventh in the other Ferrari.
The first attempt to start the race was swiftly aborted as it became clear that visibility was far too poor for it to safely get going. Race control needed only one formation lap to decide that the conditions were too treacherous and ordered for the marshals to show red flags.
It took a wait of 90 minutes before the race was allowed to get going, on a rapidly drying track after the worst of the heavy rain had passed over. But still, they decided to begin with a rolling start which benefitted pole-sitter Norris who was worried that his side of the start-finish straight was wetter than the other side of the track.
That message was clearly received by race control who decided a rolling start would be safer and fairer than everyone taking to their grid slots. Not that it helped Norris keep the lead, as he lost out to Piastri on the first lap of full racing having lost battery power, meaning he was a sitting duck at the end of the long Kemmel Straight.
When he got the electrics flowing again, he was able to keep in touch with his team-mate and title rival. And the McLarens were clearly looking after those intermediate tyres better than anyone else, given they were both more than 10 second clear of third-placed Leclerc within just half-a-dozen laps.
As Piastri was in the lead, he had earned the right to pit first when the time came to switch from the ruined intermediate tyres that everyone was sliding around on to the slicks. That meant Norris had to do an extra lap on much slower rubber which dropped him from one second behind his team-mate to nearly nine adrift.
But he decided to go onto the hard compound, while every other car on track went to the mediums. Approaching half distance, that looked like a very shrewd move as he began to close the gap to Piastri and was the fastest car on track, while George Russell in the Mercedes became the first driver to voice doubts that the mediums would make it to the end of the race.
Soon over the radio, Piastri was sending a similar message, with Norris clearly the stronger position at that point despite running behind the other McLaren. Another driver flying was Hamilton, who had started from the pit lane after a horrible qualifying effort but was making the most of his new engine parts and had flown up to seventh.
But the seven-time champion's progress stalled when he came up to the back of Alex Albon in the Williams which was running a low-downforce setup. That made things tricky in the wet but, now that the track had dried out, the British-Thai racer was lightning quick on the straights which made it tough for the Ferrari to stay with him.
At the front, Norris had been kept at arm's length but, with 10 laps to go, started to make progress in the first sign that Piastri's medium tyres were going off. But his progress was stunted when he lost almost a full second with a bad lock-up at turn one on lap 35, which would have also caused some damage to that front-right hard.
Norris began closing again but another error with two laps to go ended the slim hopes he still had of catching his rival. It means Piastri will head into next weekend's Hungarian Grand Prix with a 17-point advantage over his title rival in what continues to be an extraordinarily close fight for F1 glory.
Full 2025 Belgian Grand Prix result
Oscar Piastri - McLaren
Lando Norris - McLaren
Charles Leclerc - Ferrari
Max Verstappen - Red Bull
George Russell - Mercedes
Alex Albon - Williams
Lewis Hamilton - Ferrari
Liam Lawson - Racing Bulls
Gabriel Bortoleto - Sauber
Pierre Gasly - Alpine
Oliver Bearman - Haas
Nico Hulkenberg - Sauber
Yuki Tsunoda - Red Bull
Lance Stroll - Aston Martin
Esteban Ocon - Haas
Kimi Antonelli - Mercedes
Fernando Alonso - Aston Martin
Carlos Sainz - Williams
Franco Colapinto - Alpine
Isack Hadjar - Racing Bulls
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The Guardian
38 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. 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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.' 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an hour ago
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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."
