Piastri takes dominant sprint pole in Belgium

New Straits Times

3 days ago

SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS: Formula One leader Oscar Piastri secured pole position for the Saturday sprint by nearly half a second at the Belgian Grand Prix while McLaren teammate and title rival Lando Norris qualified third.
Red Bull's reigning champion Max Verstappen will join the Australian on the front row for the first race since Christian Horner was dismissed as team boss and replaced with Laurent Mekies.
Piastri lapped the Spa-Francorchamps circuit with a track record time of one minute 40.510 seconds, a mighty 0.477 seconds quicker than Verstappen and 0.618 clear of Norris.
The Australian, eight points clear of Norris at the top after 12 of 24 rounds, apologised over the radio for the scare of almost going out in the second phase when he had a lap deleted for exceeding track limits at Raidillon and was 10th.
"Sorry for the heart attack. That wasn't in the plan," he said. "But that was mega. Nicely done, very nicely done."
Piastri later described it as "a little scare" and attributed his speed to a simple love of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
"It's my favourite one of the year. Maybe that gave me a couple of extra tenths," he added. "When the car is handling as well as it is today, it's a pleasure.
"I've had good confidence. I feel like the last few weekends have been good from a pace perspective but not so much from a results perspective."
Norris has won the last two races, at Silverstone because Piastri collected a 10-second penalty, but the Australian was quickest in Friday's sole practice at Spa.
Verstappen said the lap was fine, but the gap big, and doubted his Red Bull's straight line speed could match the McLaren over the 100km distance at the longest track on the calendar.
"When you're almost five tenths off, I don't think going faster or slower on the straight is going to matter a lot. We just have to do our own race and see what we can do," said the four-times world champion.
Ferrari's Charles Leclerc starts fourth but teammate Lewis Hamilton will line up 18th after a difficult afternoon for the seven-times world champion, whose most recent win came at the same circuit last year with Mercedes.
The Briton spun on his last flying lap while on course to go through, with the suspicion falling on a failure of the car's rear axle.
"Obviously I'm massively frustrated," he said.
George Russell, who finished first last year for Mercedes but was then disqualified for an underweight car, also struggled and qualified 13th.
His rookie teammate Kimi Antonelli qualified last after a spin and run through the gravel.
Esteban Ocon will start fifth for Haas with Carlos Sainz sixth for Williams and Oliver Bearman seventh for Haas in what could be a lively battle between the mid-table teams.