Piastri takes F1 sprint pole in Belgium; Lawson 11th
Photo:
ANTONIN VINCENT
A "frustrated" Liam Lawson has qualified 11th fastest for the Belgian Grand Prix sprint race while Formula 1 championship leader Oscar Piastri drove to a dominant pole position.
New Zealand's Lawson missed out on a place in the top 10 by just 0.041 seconds [https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/sport/567983/f1-s-spa-weekend-kicks-off-a-new-era-for-red-bull
at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit] and blamed his exit in the second stage of qualifying on an "issue" late in his drive for Racing Bulls.
"I'm a little bit frustrated. It's just small margins - which is crazy around here, because it's such a long lap," he said.
"The car's been fast, I was on a lap that was plenty good enough, but had an issue in the last chicane.
"It's the tiny things that make a difference, so this unfortunately knocked us out. Obviously we'll take the learnings from today and try to fix them ahead of tomorrow.
"Like every other weekend, it's important that we extract every little bit out of the car. Wind changes make quite a big difference here, as it did a few weeks ago at Silverstone, but the key thing is to bring everything together as a team which is what we'll be pushing to do for the rest of the weekend."
Lawson's best time of 1min 42.169sec was nearly a second and a half faster than what he achieved in practice, when he was 15th fastest.
New Zealand driver Liam Lawson of Racing Bulls.
Photo:
ANTONIN VINCENT / PHOTOSPORT
Piastri was nearly half a second faster than the field while his 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 in 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."
Oscar Piastri of McLaren F1 team.
Photo:
PHOTOSPORT
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.
Lewis Hamilton racing at Monaco, 2025.
Photo:
PHOTOSPORT
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.
Alpine's Pierre Gasly, Racing Bulls' Isack Hadjar and Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto completed the top 10 with only the first eight scoring points.
- RNZ/Reuters
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