McLaren's Oscar Piastri quickest in practice for Belgian Grand Prix
George Russell finished fourth for Mercedes, one place ahead of Ferrari driver Charles Leclerc. Lewis Hamilton was sixth, one second off the pace.
Our top three in FP1 (the only practice session this weekend)
🥇 Oscar🥈 Max🥉 Lando#F1 #BelgianGP pic.twitter.com/GQf3aBAbcU
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 25, 2025
Former Red Bull team principal Christian Horner is this weekend absent from a Formula One event for the first time in 20 years following his dramatic dismissal earlier this month.
Horner was released from his position 18 months after he was accused of 'inappropriate behaviour' by a female staff member – although he was twice exonerated – and Red Bull's dramatic slump in form. Four-time world champion Verstappen has won just four of the last 26 races he has competed in.
Occupying Horner's seat on the Red Bull pit wall is Frenchman Laurent Mekies, and he oversaw Verstappen splitting the McLaren drivers. However, Yuki Tsunoda was only 18th in the other Red Bull.
Norris arrived in Spa-Francorchamps with back-to-back victories after triumphs in Austria and his home race at Silverstone.
But the British driver appears to have his work cut out to stop Piastri at Spa-Francorchamps after the Australian set a blistering pace in the sole practice session on Friday.
Hamilton might have hoped an upgraded rear suspension on his Ferrari will reverse his fortunes. Yet the seven-time world champion was a distant sixth in his Ferrari.
Earlier in the session, Hamilton also courted the wrath of Gabriel Bortoleto after the rookie accused him of driving slowly through the high-speed Radillon.
'Mate what the f*** is Hamilton doing?' he yelled. 'He is always in the middle of the track.'
Qualifying for Saturday's sprint race takes place at 1630 local time (1530 BST).
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mirror
14 minutes ago
- Daily Mirror
Sky Sports F1 star Ted Kravitz calls out key Ferrari figure over Lewis Hamilton treatment
Lewis Hamilton's struggles at the Belgian Grand Prix continued as he failed to make it out of Q1 in qualifying, with his engineer Riccardo Adami coming in for criticism Ferrari engineer Riccardo Adami has faced criticism for his approach towards Lewis Hamilton. It came as the Brit suffered a torrid weekend at the Belgian Grand Prix, which included two Q1 exits in both qualifying sessions held at the Formula 1 Sprint event at Circuit Spa-Francorchamps. Following a disappointing 15th-place finish in Saturday's sprint race, matters worsened for the seven-time F1 champion when he encountered difficulties during qualifying. Hamilton set a rapid lap in Q1, but his time was subsequently scrubbed from the records. He received a penalty for breaching track limits at the Raidillon corner, meaning he failed to progress to Q2. This left him just 16th on the timesheets before Ferrari confirmed hours before Sunday's race that Hamilton would start from the pit lane. Speaking over the radio, race engineer Adami seemed to display little compassion in the aftermath. When Hamilton enquired airwaves: "Is everything okay?" following his qualifying attempt, he received a curt response. "Track limits at turn four," came the blunt reply. After Hamilton questioned whether this meant he had been eliminated from Q1, the Italian responded: "Yeah. Lap time is deleted. P16." Sky Sports F1 reporter Ted Kravitz highlighted Adami's approach to that conversation as he discussed what had happened on his Ted's Notebook programme. He suggested that Hamilton's previous engineer at Mercedes, Peter Bonnington, would have managed the situation with greater sensitivity. 'Bono' worked with the Brit for more than a decade and the pair had a strong rapport, which is something Hamilton has yet to find with Adami. "Did you think it was a bit terse on the radio between him and Riccardo Adami, saying, 'Is there something wrong?" Kravitz said. "I don't know whether I expected a bit more empathy. To say, 'Ah, I'm sorry, Lewis. Bad luck, mate. You're out, hard one by, pal.' The kind of things Bono would have said." Hamilton, 40, made no effort to hide his frustration afterwards, offering an apology to both his team and supporters as his difficult 2025 campaign rolls on. I'm just really sorry to the team," he said. "Hard work with the filming day that we did, and all the preparation, and then you come here and don't make it through Q1. It's unacceptable. Really sorry." It is far from the first time the relationship between Hamilton and Adami has been questioned since his move to Ferrari. There were several examples of tense conversations between them over the radio earlier in the season which caused so much of a stir that the racer felt the need to speak publicly about how he is working with his new race engineer. He said: "We're constantly learning more and more about each other, we're constantly adapting to the way both of us like to work. There's a lot of speculation. I mean, most of it is BS. Ultimately, we have a great relationship. He's been amazing to work with, he's a great guy, working so hard – we both are – and we don't always get it right every weekend. We have disagreements, like everyone does in relationships, but we work through them."
Reuters
14 minutes ago
- Reuters
Piastri beats Norris in rain-delayed Belgian Grand Prix
SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium, July 27 (Reuters) - Oscar Piastri passed McLaren teammate and title rival Lando Norris with a bold early move to win the rain-delayed Belgian Grand Prix and extend his Formula One lead to 16 points on Sunday. Charles Leclerc was a distant third for Ferrari as reigning champions McLaren celebrated their sixth one-two finish in 13 races and the third in a row. The race at Spa-Francorchamps was red-flagged after an initial formation lap and delayed by an hour and 20 minutes due to the weather, with standing water and heavy spray affecting visibility. Piastri was in no mood for hanging around when the racing got going with a rolling start after four laps behind the safety car to check conditions. The Australian slipstreamed Norris through the daunting Eau Rouge and then scythed past down the Kemmel straight into Les Combes in a move of total commitment in the treacherous conditions. "I knew lap one would be my best chance of winning the race. I got a good exit out of Turn One, lifted as little as I dared out of Eau Rouge," he said. "The rest of the race we managed really well. I struggled at the end. Maybe the mediums were not the best for the last five or six laps. We had it mostly under control." The win was his sixth of the season, making the 24-year-old the first Australian -- on a list that includes past world champions Jack Brabham and Alan Jones -- to triumph so many times in a single campaign. Norris had a slight battery issue, the Briton asking over the radio why he had "no pack" before his race engineer assured him it was coming back, but he was not looking for any excuses afterwards. "Oscar just did a good job. Nothing more to say. Committed a bit more through Eau Rouge, and had the slipstream and got the run," he said. "So nothing to complain of. He did a better job in the beginning, and that was it. Nothing more I could do after that point. I would love to be up top, but Oscar deserved it today." Piastri now has 266 points to Norris' 250. Red Bull's reigning champion Max Verstappen is third but 81 points off the lead and the championship more than ever a two-horse race with Hungary up next weekend before the August break. McLaren lead the constructors' standings with 516 points to Ferrari's 248 while Mercedes fell further behind their Italian rivals on 220. Piastri pitted on lap 12 of 44 to switch from intermediates to medium tyres on a drying track and Norris followed a lap later, but opting for the hards and rejoining nine seconds behind. The Briton might have hoped Piastri would have to pit again but the Australian made the tyres last to the chequered flag on a one-stop strategy. Piastri crossed the line 3.415 seconds clear of Norris, who had been chasing a third win in a row and managed to reduce the gap in the final laps before late mistakes left the ever-calm Australian under no pressure. Saturday sprint winner Verstappen finished fourth in his team's first grand prix since the dismissal of team boss Christian Horner , with George Russell fifth for Mercedes. Williams' Alex Albon held off Ferrari's seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton -- last year's winner with Mercedes -- to secure sixth. Hamilton had been one of four drivers due to start from the pit lane but given a big boost by the switch to a rolling getaway and a fresh engine installed overnight. The Briton was also the first to make the decision to switch to slicks and pit, gaining six places. Liam Lawson was eighth for Racing Bulls with Gabriel Bortoleto ninth for Sauber and Pierre Gasly securing the final point for Alpine.
Daily Mail
14 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen moan at F1 bosses for 'silly' Belgian GP delay... accusing them of being 'way too cautious' in the rain
Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen argued that the Belgian Grand Prix should not have been delayed for 80 minutes despite the track throwing up plumes of spray from persistent rain. The two star men of the grid, with 11 world titles between them, felt FIA race director Rui Marques was overly cautious in calling the cars in at the prescribed 3pm start time after just the formation lap behind the safety car. An hour's further hiatus ensued as rain intensified. When it stopped, and the wet started to evaporate from the track, the race started behind a safety car that stayed out for four laps – longer than many observers thought necessary. Of the initial red flag, Verstappen said to his Red Bull team over the radio: 'That's a bit silly. We should just run. Like chillax. Jesus. 'They're way too cautious. And now the rain is coming, the heavy rain.' Told of Verstappen's view afterwards, Hamilton, who finished an impressive seventh from 18th on the grid, said: 'I would agree. My car was set up for that. They waited for it to dry. Especially at the end (when the safety car was out). There was a dry line with hardly any spray.' Spray remained an issue early on but quickly cleared as the track dried — prompting criticism from some drivers that the delay was excessive Indeed, intermediate tyres were only required for seven laps. After a wet race in Silverstone three weeks ago, the drivers spoke to the FIA, a reason for the excess of carefulness, Hamilton believes. He explained: 'Lots of drivers in the last race said we shouldn't have restarted, because of a lack of visibility. And as soon as someone up ahead said today "visibility is pretty bad", which… it wasn't great but it wasn't as bad as the last race, I think they just waited. 'They still did a good job. Of course, we did miss some of the extreme wet weather racing, which would have been nice. But for some reason the spray here is like a fog.' Race winner Oscar Piastri disagreed with his esteemed colleagues, saying: 'We have given the FIA feedback that we would much rather be on the safe side. If you were picky you might say we could have done one lap fewer behind the safety car, but is the risk worth it? 'The first time we tried to start the race, with only Lando ahead, I couldn't see a thing so you can imagine what it is like for the guys at the back.' Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, referring to recent deaths at Spa, including his friend Anthoine Hubert in a Formula Two race in 2019, said: 'On a track like this you cannot forget about its history so I would rather be safe than go early.' In all, 49 drivers or riders have died at Spa in 100 years.
