The Belgian Grand Prix isn't kind to pole sitters.
Oscar Piastri experienced that first-hand during Saturday's sprint, as the McLaren driver lost the lead on the opening lap to Max Verstappen and settled for a second-place finish behind the Red Bull.
But Sunday's race brought a reversal of fortunes. Piastri passed McLaren teammate Lando Norris shortly after the start and put a perfect foot on the pedal to earn his sixth victory of the season.
Norris crossed the line 3.4 seconds behind his teammate as McLaren earned its sixth 1-2 finish of the season. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc rounded out the podium in third.
Here's a look at the key moments from the Belgian GP.
Small mistakes add up for Norris
Piastri entered the weekend with an eight-point lead in the drivers' championship over Norris and left Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps having doubled his advantage.
Norris could have drawn level on points with his teammate before the race even started had he won the sprint and Piastri finished outside of the top eight. Alas, Norris finished third right behind Piastri.
Rain delayed the race by over an hour and led to a rolling start once the safety car exited ahead of Lap 5. Piastri went on the attack early after Norris slid out of the Turn 1 hairpin and overtook his teammate before Les Combes corner with a similar manoeuvre Verstappen had pulled off on him the day before.
That gave Piastri first crack at the pits on Lap 13 to switch from the intermediate tires to the slick mediums as the track dried out.
McLaren opted not to double stack their drivers in the pits as Norris remained out for another lap. Although Norris reinherited the lead, his intermediate tires were shredded by the time he made another trek around the 7.004-kilometre track — the longest on the calendar — and pitted on the following lap.
A hiccup fitting his front left tire during his pit stop didn't help either, as Norris went from being on Piastri's tail to six seconds back.
Norris did roll with the hard compound tire, but he would need to put pressure on Piastri to use up his mediums faster and potentially have to pit again. That never came to fruition.
While Piastri managed his tires brilliantly and earned a flawless victory, a couple more wobbles from Norris — pushing too hard early in the stint and trying to make up for lost time later — erased any advantages he gained to try to mount a comeback.
Piastri now takes a 16-point lead over Norris into Hungary, returning to the scene of his maiden F1 GP victory a year ago.
Let's not forget the controversy from that one. Norris had pitted early and ended up undercutting Piastri, leading McLaren to beg him to hand the lead back to his teammate before the finish. With the two firmly in a title fight, that could be a sign of what to expect again.
Verstappen sprints to victory
Verstappen might not like sprints, but they sure like him. The four-time reigning world champion picked up his record-extending 12th sprint win Saturday — compare that to everyone else, who have nine wins combined. (Yes, sprints were introduced only four years ago, but that’s still impressive. It truly is Verstappen vs. the field.)
Crucial to Verstappen’s victory was a lower-downforce rear wing setup to maximize top speed through the straights while sacrificing grip. That allowed Verstappen to slingshot past Piastri toward the end of the Kemmel straight and into Les Combes on the opening lap.
Verstappen couldn't maintain that setup for qualifying, though. Teams are not allowed to change their wing setups while under parc fermé conditions after qualifying and face a penalty. With the threat of rain for Sunday’s race and thus the need for more grip or risk losing control (i.e., avoiding a repeat of his spin in Silverstone), Verstappen ran a higher-downforce rear wing in qualifying and placed fourth on the starting grid.
Fourth was also where Verstappen finished, 1.5 seconds behind Leclerc for the final spot on the podium as he was unable to find a way past the Ferrari.
New era for Red Bull
The weekend also marked the beginning of a new chapter for Red Bull after team principal and CEO Christian Horner was fired earlier this month. Horner had been at the helm since Red Bull joined the grid in 2005, leading them to six constructors’ and eight drivers’ championships.
Red Bull has lost other architects to its dynasty in recent years. Chief engineer Rob Marshall moved to McLaren, sporting director Jonathan Wheatley joined Sauber as team principal and designer Adrian Newey left for Aston Martin. That’s a lot of key personnel changes and it signals a changing of the guard. Red Bull will not only have new regulations to deal with next season but also a new power unit partner in Ford, with Honda shifting over to Aston Martin.
Laurent Mekies was promoted to team principal from the sibling team Racing Bulls and will have a tall task ahead to re-establish a winning culture.
One of the first orders of business: Mekies will need to sort out the issue with Red Bull's second car as Yuki Tsunoda finished 13th and out of the points for the sixth consecutive GP. It didn't help that his team called him in to box right after he had passed the pit entry line, thus requiring him to complete another lap on worn-out tires before he could get them replaced.
Tsunoda, who replaced Liam Lawson in the seat after two races this year, sits 17th in the standings with 10 points. Lawson, now back at Racing Bulls, came in eighth and moved up to 14th overall. The Red Bull second-seat curse continues.
Also, Tsunoda inherited a dubious record after Nico Hulkenberg earned his first career podium last time out at Silverstone. Tsunoda, who made his 100th start Sunday, is now the active leader among drivers who have started the most races without scoring a podium finish. Tsunoda’s best career finish was fourth during his rookie season at the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP, which probably went unnoticed given what else happened at that race. He’s also not that far off from Adrian Sutil (128) for the all-time record — give it a season and a half, if Tsunoda lands a ride for next year.
'Crunch time' for Hammer time
Lewis Hamilton told reporters Thursday it was “crunch time” amid a lacklustre start to his Ferrari tenure. The seven-time world champion entered the weekend sixth in the standings — 21 points back of teammate Charles Leclerc — with zero GP podiums.
It definitely wasn't the start Hamilton imagined as he was eliminated in the first session of qualifying twice — for the sprint and the race.
While entering the final bus stop chicane during sprint qualifying, Hamilton tried spinning, which — despite what The Phantom Menace taught us — is not a good trick.
It looked like Hamilton had advanced to the second round of qualifying for the race, but it turned out he had exceeded track limits while running up that hill at wavy Turn 4. Hamilton had his lap time deleted and plummeted to P16 on the grid.
The 40-year-old then started 18th from the pit lane after replacing power unit parts under parc fermé conditions, and pulled off a massive recovery effort to finish seventh in the race. Hamilton was among the first to dump the intermediate tires for mediums and used that extra lap advantage on the slicks to move into the top 10.
Good job, good effort to salvage what could have been a disastrous weekend, but Hamilton is still getting outshone by his teammate. Leclerc picked up his sixth podium finish of the season and extended his advantage to 30 points over Hamilton.
Pit stops
• You have to feel for Haas driver Oliver Bearman, who finished 11th — right on the outside-looking-in for points — for the fourth consecutive GP. If there's any consolation, Bearman came in seventh during the sprint to score two points, so it's not a total drought, but the rookie British driver remains 18th in the standings.
• The slump continued for Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli. Like Hamilton, Antonelli was eliminated during both Q1s, although he at least had the excuse of being a rookie. Antonelli finished the race 16th, missing out on points for the sixth time in seven races. The outlier sandwiched in the middle of his slump is his maiden podium at the Canadian GP. Mercedes teammate George Russell quietly finished fifth. Both drivers remain free agents for next year and expect signing season to heat up over the next few weeks during the summer break on the horizon.
• While McLaren was praised for locking out the front row in qualifying, how about Aston Martin pulling a reverse and locking out the last row? Fernando Alonso qualified 19th and Lance Stroll 20th. Stroll managed to finish 14th, although he gained four spots before the race even began with Alonso, Hamilton, Antonelli and Williams driver Carlos Sainz all making changes to their cars and starting from the pit lane.
