Belgian GP result: Lando Norris gamble fails as Lewis Hamilton stars from back of grid

Daily Mirror

3 hours ago

Oscar Piastri stayed sharpest after a long rain delay to strike early with the decisive move that won him the Belgian Grand Prix. He got the better of team-mate Lando Norris, who had started on pole in his mother's homeland, but ended up playing second-fiddle to his Formula 1 title rival.
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