Oscar Piastri Leads McLaren Runaway Win at F1 Belgian Grand Prix

Date:2025-07-28 02:34:44 Category:tech Views:3 Comment:0

Oscar Piastri overtook McLaren teammate Lando Norris to chalk up his sixth victory of the season at a delayed wet/dry Belgian Grand Prix, extending his title advantage to 16 points.

Autoweek rounds up the main talking points from the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.

Piastri Returns to the Front

Lando Norris arrived at the Belgian GP off the back of successive victories in Austria and Britain, but Piastri arrested that momentum with an accomplished performance on Sunday.

The race start was delayed due to torrential rain during the build-up, and when it got going—as a rolling start after four interminable Safety Car laps—leader Norris got a critical snap of oversteer exiting the La Source hairpin. Piastri got a run on his teammate through the downhill plunge towards Eau Rouge, having to back off such was his momentum, and cruised past the sister McLaren on the long drag to Les Combes.

f1 grand prix of belgium — Oscar Piastri conquered the early wet conditions and extended his points lead in the F1 championship. Ryan Pierse - Getty Images

Piastri kept Norris at bay through the wet phase of the race and when he switched to Medium tires on lap 12—once the circuit sufficiently dried—Norris reacted the following lap by taking on the more durable Hards. That set up a strategic divergence that provided intrigue through the remainder of the 44-lap encounter, but a slightly slow pit stop and pitting one lap later hurt Norris, with the gap ballooning to nine seconds.

Norris chipped away at the deficit but a trio of mistakes, twice snatching a brake into the La Source hairpin and once running wide at Pouhon, hindered his charge. Norris never got closer than three seconds to Piastri, who excellently preserved his slightly more fragile Medium tires, and never looked like being flustered by Norris gradually inching closer.

“I knew that lap one was going to be probably my best chance of winning a race,” Piastri said. “And I got a good exit out of Turn 1. And then lifted as little as I did through Eau Rouge. And then it was enough. So, the rest of the race we managed really well, struggling a little bit the end, maybe the Medium wasn't the best for the last five or six laps, but we had it mostly under control, which is what I wanted. I was pretty disappointed with myself after yesterday, but turns out, starting second was not too bad. After all, it's worked out well this weekend.”

Norris was still positive in the aftermath of the race.

“Oscar came past me pretty easily, so even if I had a better Turn 1, his run and the slipstream probably still would have got me,” Norris said. “I'm not too disappointed.”

The McLaren drivers were joined on the podium by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who resisted Max Verstappen through the early stages, before retaining a slender buffer to the reigning champion across the remainder of the race.

Struggling Antonelli Searching for Confidence

Teenage rookie Kimi Antonelli was impressive early in the season at circuits where he lacked experience, such as on his debut in Melbourne, at the challenging Suzuka, and around the wall-lined Miami circuit. But since returning to more familiar ground in Europe Antonelli has been all at sea.

Antonelli has failed to score points in six of his last seven Grands Prix, his run interrupted only by his Canada podium, during which spell there have been incidents aplenty and a lack of pace. Antonelli was among the slowest drivers through the weekend at Spa-Francorchamps, and appeared in the post-qualifying interview pen red-eyed, and expanded on the situation.

“I've been struggling to find confidence with the car and I feel like I've done a backward step,” Antonelli said. “It's a difficult moment for me, because I feel like I have no confidence when pushing We know the limitation we have since quite a lot, but with the way I'm driving, I'm just increasing the problem. And that gives me even less confidence with the car. I think there's a lot of work to do on my side and I'll try to find the light out of the tunnel as soon as possible.”

Antonelli was only 16th in Sunday’s race and teammate George Russell, who had a low-key run to fifth, feels Mercedes has made a step in the wrong direction.

“We need to really understand what is going on and why we've taken such a step backwards because these conditions today, you would argue, are ideal for us and our car,” Russell said. “And once again, it's been the worst performance of the season. We're going to have a big sit-down this week and try and figure it out. Definitely the car isn't feeling as nice to drive at the moment as it once did. Lacking rear stability, whereas at the start of the year it was much better. I think Kimi and I are collectively making more mistakes because the car is more challenging to drive.”

Mercedes boss Toto Wolff added that “there are not many positives we can take from the weekend here in Spa. Our pace has not been good enough to compete with our usual rivals and that has been frustrating. We need to quickly understand why that has been.”

Drivers Mixed on Rain Delay

There were differing opinions on the manner in which the race was managed by the FIA.

Following a torrential downpour on the grid the formation lap started on time at 3 p.m. local time behind the Safety Car, but the starting procedure was swiftly suspended given the dreadful conditions.

The drivers were kept in the pit lane during a briefly dry interlude in anticipation of further rainfall, which drenched the track again between 15:15 and 15:45. But once the rain stopped, and the sun came out, there was a brief wait until the race finally got going behind the Safety Car at 16:20. There was then a further four laps behind the Safety Car, and eventually racing began around 16:30, with the track dry enough for slicks by lap 12.

“Of course between Turn 1 and 5 there was quite a bit of water, but with two laps behind the Safety Car, then it would have been a lot more clear,” Max Verstappen said. “And the rest of the track was anyway ready to go. It's a bit of a shame. This is not really wet weather racing for me.”

But other drivers were more realistic, pointing to the manner in which the spray hangs in the air at Spa-Francorchamps, and the slightly sketchy nature of the blind Eau Rouge/Raidillon complex, where in the past there have been serious accidents.

“I mean, as a racer, you always want to get going, you love driving in the rain,” Mercedes’ George Russell said. “But the fact is, when you're doing over 200 miles an hour out of Eau Rouge, you literally cannot see anything, you may as well have a blindfold on. It isn't racing, it's just stupidity.”

Komatsu Frustrated as Haas ‘Failed to Execute’

Haas boss Ayao Komatsu was left frustrated as the team left Sunday’s race empty-handed off the back of an encouraging outcome in Saturday’s Sprint Race. Ollie Bearman came home just outside of the points in 11th place, having spent much of the race stuck behind Yuki Tsunoda, and lost time due to an engine issue—without which he likely would have picked up a handful of points. Esteban Ocon was left down in 15th spot and said “we got today completely wrong” after losing a hatful of time by delaying his switch from the wet to the dry tires.

“Today has been frustrating, as especially with Ollie we should’ve scored points,” Komatsu said. “He had lots of pace with the downforce level he had, he was really happy with the car, and he had so much confidence. We knew however if you have that set-up and you’re in traffic, you’re not going to overtake, which is unfortunately exactly what happened. On top of that, we had an issue with the car so we couldn’t optimize it, as with his starting position we could’ve scored points.

“On Esteban’s side, we had an operational error and the pit stop timing wasn’t right. The speed is there though, I think we may have the fifth fastest car out there – which is amazing and hats off to the team who delivered it – but we just failed to execute. We have one more race before the shutdown, so we need to focus on the basics, and if we do that extremely well, I honestly have no doubt that we can score with both cars.”

Having closed on its rivals on Saturday, Haas lost ground to Racing Bulls and Sauber on Sunday, with Liam Lawson eighth and Gabriel Bortoleto ninth. Consequently Haas remains ninth in the Constructors’ Championship, on 35 points, though sixth-placed Sauber is just eight points up the road in a battle that is likely to remain closely-fought through the remainder of the campaign.