F1 Takeaways: Piastri outperforms Norris to win Belgian GP

The Belgian Grand Prix is not form to pole sitters.

Oscar Piastri skilled that first-hand throughout Saturday’s dash, because the McLaren driver misplaced the lead on the opening lap to Max Verstappen and settled for a second-place end behind the Crimson Bull.

However Sunday’s race introduced a reversal of fortunes. Piastri handed McLaren teammate Lando Norris shortly after the beginning and put an ideal foot on the pedal to earn his sixth victory of the season.

Norris crossed the road 3.4 seconds behind his teammate as McLaren earned its sixth 1-2 end of the season. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc rounded out the rostrum in third.

This is a take a look at the important thing moments from the Belgian GP.

Small errors add up for Norris

Piastri entered the weekend with an eight-point lead within the drivers’ championship over Norris and left Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps having doubled his benefit.

Norris may have drawn degree on factors along with his teammate earlier than the race even began had he gained the dash and Piastri completed outdoors of the highest eight. Alas, Norris completed third proper behind Piastri.

Rain delayed the race by over an hour and led to a rolling begin as soon as the security automobile exited forward of Lap 5. Piastri went on the assault early after Norris slid out of the Flip 1 hairpin and overtook his teammate earlier than Les Combes nook with an analogous manoeuvre Verstappen had pulled off on him the day earlier than.

That gave Piastri first crack on the pits on Lap 13 to change from the intermediate tires to the slick mediums because the monitor dried out.

McLaren opted to not double stack their drivers within the pits as Norris remained out for one more lap. Though Norris reinherited the lead, his intermediate tires have been shredded by the point he made one other trek across the 7.004-kilometre monitor — the longest on the calendar — and pitted on the next lap.

A hiccup becoming his entrance left tire throughout his pit cease did not assist both, as Norris went from being on Piastri’s tail to 6 seconds again.

Norris did roll with the laborious compound tire, however he would wish to place stress on Piastri to make use of up his mediums sooner and doubtlessly must pit once more. That by no means got here to fruition.

Whereas Piastri managed his tires brilliantly and earned a flawless victory, a pair extra wobbles from Norris — pushing too laborious early within the stint and making an attempt to make up for misplaced time later — erased any benefits he gained to attempt 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 12 months in the past.

Let’s not neglect the controversy from that one. Norris had pitted early and ended up undercutting Piastri, main McLaren to beg him at hand the lead again to his teammate earlier than the end. With the 2 firmly in a title battle, that might be an indication of what to anticipate once more.

Verstappen sprints to victory

Verstappen won’t like sprints, however they positive like him. The four-time reigning world champion picked up his record-extending twelfth dash win Saturday — evaluate that to everybody else, who’ve 9 wins mixed. (Sure, sprints have been launched solely 4 years in the past, however that’s nonetheless spectacular. It really is Verstappen vs. the sector.) 

Essential to Verstappen’s victory was a lower-downforce rear wing setup to maximise prime pace by the straights whereas sacrificing grip. That allowed Verstappen to slingshot previous Piastri towards the top of the Kemmel straight and into Les Combes on the opening lap. 

Verstappen could not keep that setup for qualifying, although. Groups usually are not allowed to alter their wing setups whereas beneath parc fermé situations after qualifying and face a penalty. With the specter of rain for Sunday’s race and thus the necessity for extra grip or threat shedding management (i.e., avoiding a repeat of his spin in Silverstone), Verstappen ran a higher-downforce rear wing in qualifying and positioned fourth on the beginning grid. 

Fourth was additionally the place Verstappen completed, 1.5 seconds behind Leclerc for the ultimate spot on the rostrum as he was unable to discover a well past the Ferrari.

The weekend additionally marked the start of a brand new chapter for Crimson Bull after staff principal and CEO Christian Horner was fired earlier this month. Horner had been on the helm since Crimson Bull joined the grid in 2005, main them to 6 constructors’ and eight drivers’ championships.

Crimson Bull has misplaced different architects to its dynasty lately. Chief engineer Rob Marshall moved to McLaren, sporting director Jonathan Wheatley joined Sauber as staff principal and designer Adrian Newey left for Aston Martin. That’s loads of key personnel modifications and it alerts a altering of the guard. Crimson Bull is not going to solely have new rules to cope with subsequent season but in addition a brand new energy unit associate in Ford, with Honda shifting over to Aston Martin. 

Laurent Mekies was promoted to staff principal from the sibling staff Racing Bulls and could have a tall process forward to re-establish a successful tradition. 

One of many first orders of enterprise: Mekies might want to type out the problem with Crimson Bull’s second automobile as Yuki Tsunoda completed thirteenth and out of the factors for the sixth consecutive GP.

Tsunoda, who changed Liam Lawson within the seat after two races this 12 months, sits seventeenth within the standings with 10 factors. Lawson, now again at Racing Bulls, got here in eighth and moved as much as 14th total. The Crimson Bull second-seat curse continues.

Additionally, Tsunoda inherited a doubtful report after Nico Hulkenberg earned his first profession podium final day trip at Silverstone. Tsunoda, who made his one centesimal begin Sunday, is now the lively chief amongst drivers who’ve began essentially the most races with out scoring a podium end. Tsunoda’s greatest profession end was fourth throughout his rookie season on the 2021 Abu Dhabi GP, which most likely went unnoticed given what else occurred at that race. He’s additionally not that far off from Adrian Sutil (128) for the all-time report — give it a season and a half, if Tsunoda lands a experience for subsequent 12 months.

‘Crunch time’ for Hammer time

Lewis Hamilton advised reporters Thursday it was “crunch time” amid a lacklustre begin to his Ferrari tenure. The seven-time world champion entered the weekend sixth within the standings — 21 factors again of teammate Charles Leclerc — with zero GP podiums. 

It positively wasn’t the beginning Hamilton imagined as he was eradicated within the first session of qualifying twice — for the dash and the race.

Whereas coming into the ultimate bus cease chicane throughout dash qualifying, Hamilton tried spinning, which — regardless of what The Phantom Menace taught us — just isn’t a very good trick. 

It appeared like Hamilton had superior to the second spherical of qualifying for the race, but it surely turned out he had exceeded monitor limits whereas working up that hill at wavy Flip 4. Hamilton had his lap time deleted and plummeted to P16 on the grid. 

The 40-year-old then began 18th from the pit lane after changing energy unit elements beneath parc fermé situations, and pulled off an enormous restoration effort to complete seventh within the race. Hamilton was among the many first to dump the intermediate tires for mediums and used that additional lap benefit on the slicks to maneuver into the highest 10.

Good job, good effort to salvage what may have been a disastrous weekend, however Hamilton remains to be getting outshone by his teammate. Leclerc picked up his sixth podium end of the season and prolonged his benefit to 30 factors over Hamilton.

• You must really feel for Haas driver Oliver Bearman, who completed eleventh — proper on the outside-looking-in for factors — for the fourth consecutive GP. If there’s any comfort, Bearman got here in seventh throughout the dash to attain two factors, so it isn’t a complete drought, however the rookie British driver stays 18th within the standings.

• The droop continued for Mercedes driver Kimi Antonelli. Like Hamilton, Antonelli was eradicated throughout each Q1s, though he not less than had the excuse of being a rookie. Antonelli completed the race sixteenth, lacking out on factors for the sixth time in seven races. The outlier sandwiched in the course of his droop is his maiden podium on the Canadian GP. Mercedes teammate George Russell quietly completed fifth. Each drivers stay free brokers for subsequent 12 months and count on signing season to warmth up over the following few weeks throughout the summer time break on the horizon.

• Whereas McLaren was praised for locking out the entrance row in qualifying, how about Aston Martin pulling a reverse and locking out the final row? Fernando Alonso certified nineteenth and Lance Stroll twentieth. Stroll managed to complete 14th, though he gained 4 spots earlier than the race even started with Alonso, Hamilton, Antonelli and Williams driver Carlos Sainz all making modifications to their vehicles and ranging from the pit lane.