In the Belgian Grand Prix, after a 90-minute delay for low visibility, Oscar Piastri took the lead on the first lap of racing after four laps behind the safety car. Heading into turn five, Piastri took the lead from his teammate Lando Norris, who started on pole. This lap one move would be the race winner, as Piastri kept control of the race once by his teammate.
This was Piastri's sixth win of the season, extending his points lead in the championship to 16 points over Lando Norris.
Most teams set their cars up for a wet race, but with the long red flag, the majority of the race would be run in dry conditions, with drivers switching to intermediates starting as early as lap 12. Lewis Hamilton was among the first to pit after racing from the pit lane up to 13th position before coming in. By lap 16, Hamilton would be up to seventh after his poor qualifying this Spa weekend. Hamilton was then stuck behind the Williams of Alex Albon for the rest of the race, protecting sixth position.
Piastri, as the lead McLaren in this race, was given the prime strategy and went to the pits for mediums on lap 13, drawing in the rest of the leaders, as his teammate stayed out for a lap waiting for the pits to be available for him.
After everyone exited the pits and survived on the slick tires, McLaren's Will Joseph gave Norris the call to go with an alternative strategy and get hard tires on lap 14 in an attempt to make it to the end of the race. Electing for a one-stop strategy, knowing that he won’t be able to race Piastri for track position.
A few laps later the McLaren pit wall decided that mediums had a chance to make it as well, putting Piastri in the position to either pit a second time and have to battle back past his teammate and possibly Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen, if his lead isn’t build up enough or stay out and defend in the closing lap on further degraded tires than those of his teammate.
Through the middle of the race, the two McLarens averaged an eight-second separation, fluctuating between seven and nine seconds based mostly on small mistakes by Norris, including a missed corner entry on lap 26 that cost him a second and a lock-up going into turn one on lap 36 that cost him up the hill.
After a radio message from the pit wall reminding Norris to focus and not overbrake, Norris started to close the gap to Piastri as the mediums started to degrade.
"Lando, these tires are getting tricky," the McLaren pit wall said. "You need to keep the focus. Don’t push the braking as hard as you have been. You are naturally quicker."
Norris cut the lead to under five seconds with five laps to go. Entering the penultimate lap, Norris was under four seconds behind Piastri and made another mistake to fall back to five seconds.
Leclerc spent the whole race holding off the Red Bull of Verstappen, whom he outqualified, for a much-needed podium.
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