Piastri shines bright, as Red Bull turn the page and Mercedes lose grip
Oscar Piastri continues to prove that his form in the 2025 season is no fluke, cementing his status as a legitimate championship contender in only his second year with McLaren.
The ex-Alpine driver clinched victory at the Belgian Grand Prix, stretching his lead in the drivers' championship to 16 points ahead of teammate Lando Norris, who followed him home in second at Spa.
The battle between the two McLaren drivers has been fierce and free of team orders, with both pushing each other to the limit. So far, Piastri has landed the more decisive blows, but with such a slim margin separating them, any slip-up could become the defining moment in a season that's fast shaping into a thriller between teammates driving arguably the best car on the grid.
While McLaren have surged ahead with unrivalled pace, the rest of the paddock continues to chase shadows. And with the Hungarian Grand Prix looming just a few days away, there's little time for reflection.
Here are three key takeaways from a dramatic weekend in Spa.
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10 hours ago
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McLaren must also deal with disappointment amid runaway success
McLaren boss Zak Brown is preparing to deal with disappointment at the end of the Formula One season, even as the team enjoy one of their most dominant years and a 200th grand prix win at the weekend. As the title battle between Oscar Piastri and teammate Lando Norris heats up, the McLaren pair separated by only nine points after Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix, the American conceded he was also thinking about how to handle the aftermath. Red Bull's reigning champion Max Verstappen, the McLaren drivers' closest rival, is 97 points off the pace and told reporters at the weekend he may not win again this year given his car's issues. Even before the weekend, Piastri and Norris cast caution aside and called it a two-horse race. One of them will surely end the year celebrating a dream come true. The other will rue what might have been, with a new engine era next season shaking everything up again and chances potentially disappearing. Losing always hurts, doubly so when it is to a teammate with the same car, and Brown said McLaren would have to deal with the situation sensitively when, though he insisted on saying if, the time came. "Eventually we'll sit down and have a conversation and go 'right, one of you is going to win and it's going to be the best day of your life. One of you is going to lose. How do you want us to handle that?'," he told a select group of reporters. "We'll sit down and go 'Right, you want us to jump up and down and celebrate? This guy won'. We're fully aware and sensitive to 'how do you celebrate that situation?'." Australian Piastri has won six races to Norris' five but the Briton has momentum going into the August break, with three wins from his last four starts. The pair have had seven one-two finishes from 14 races, including the last four, and have left rivals trailing. McLaren are so far ahead in the constructors' standings - 299 points over Ferrari - that the crown is a given. Much has been made of the potential for a falling out between friends, for clashes on track given what is at stake, but Brown was sanguine and said the relationship was growing stronger. When Norris ran into the back of Piastri as he challenged for the lead in Canada in June, the Briton defused the situation by immediately taking responsibility. Piastri locked up behind Norris in Hungary on Sunday in what could have been a repeat of the Montreal accident, but no contact was made. Brown said there was no "elephant in the room" at McLaren, with the drivers having complete transparency on strategy and how the team go about racing, and he expected more close calls in future. "There's competitiveness brewing. As the championship builds, I'm sure the tension will grow," said the boss. "We're fully anticipating them 'swapping paint' again at some point, I'm very confident it won't be deliberate, which is where you get into the problems. "They will have racing incidents in their further time here at McLaren, we know that and they know that, so we're not afraid of that. "I'm positive they're never going to run each other off the track, and that's where you get into bad blood. So they're free to race. There are rules around our racing, which is respect your teammate. They know that."
TimesLIVE
10 hours ago
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Ferrari boss Vasseur says Hamilton is ‘frustrated but not demotivated'
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a day ago
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Three things we learned from the Hungarian Grand Prix
Ferrari may have endured another afternoon to forget in Hungary on Sunday with polesitter Charles Leclerc finishing fourth and Lewis Hamilton a disappointing 12th, but their underlying performance showed they could be challengers for victories this season. Post-race analysis and reaction to Hamilton's emotional outbursts revealed a very different evaluation of a race dominated by runaway leaders McLaren. AFP Sport looks at three things we learned from Sunday's thriller at the Hungaroring: Ferrari turmoil masks upward momentum Two unhappy drivers and the speculation over Hamilton's form and future suggested Ferrari continued a downward spiral, but rivals and seasoned viewers said that simple conclusion is inaccurate. Leclerc grumbled the team wrecked the "one opportunity" to win this season, but he changed his view once he learned the cause of his car's mid-race loss of pace while leading. He had thought a front wing set-up change, during a pit-stop, was his undoing, but Ferrari said it was something else which cost him around two seconds a lap. AFP | ATTILA KISBENEDEK Boss Fred Vasseur did not reveal the problem, but stressed that Leclerc's recent form, including pole in Hungary and a podium in Belgium, confirmed their upgraded car was competitive -- a view shared by rival team chief Andrea Stella of McLaren. He said he thought Ferrari will be a "contender for victories for the remainder of the season" while both Vasseur and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff said Hamilton would shine again, after the 40-year-old declared he was "useless" and should be replaced. "He's demanding," said Vasseur. "But I think it's also why he's seven-times world champion... I understand him and he will be back." Wolff, who guided Hamilton to six drivers' titles, said: "That is Lewis, wearing his heart on his sleeve. It's what he felt very much when asked straight after that session and it was very raw. "But he is still the GOAT (greatest of all time) and he still has it (the talent to win an eighth title)." Norris honesty reflects new age Once a bastion of gladiatorial sporting combat with a testosterone-fuelled culture, Formula One has in recent years developed a more compassionate culture. This was in evidence as Carlos Sainz defended his friend and former McLaren team-mate Lando Norris' honesty. AFP | Attila KISBENEDEK "He opens up to the media and to people more than any other driver on the grid -- and people use that against him," said the Spaniard. "What you see on TV is what he is as a human being. He's very good at showing himself. I find it ironic and frustrating -- he's the only guy being 100 percent genuine... and then people go back at him." After three wins in four races, Norris' triumph on Sunday cut McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri's championship lead to nine points to quieten those critics who had accused him of being mentally weaker than the cool, more introverted Australian. "It's tough already and going to be tougher," said Norris. "It's pretty small margins between us... Even if the results look great, I'm not making life easy for myself so I need to work on a few things to be in a better place." Alonso offers inspiration for Hamilton If Hamilton needed inspiration on Sunday, it was found at Aston Martin where Fernando Alonso, a two-time champion who failed to land a title at Ferrari, shrugged off a back injury to land his best result of the year as he finished fifth. Once bitter team-mates at McLaren, the pair are now respectful colleagues and F1's elder statesmen. "Big points for the team before the summer break, it feels good," Alonso said after he showed he's still got it at 44. Alonso began his career in 2001, claimed his maiden win in Hungary two years later, and has taken part in 417 Grands Prix (Hamilton has started 370), but perhaps significantly took two years off in 2019 and 2020 to recover from exhaustion.
