At the Grand Prix of Belgium in the McLaren duel, Oscar Piatri impressively repels the Formula 1 title 2025 against his stable rival Lando Norris.
In your spa debrief for sport.de the RTL experts are breaking Christian Danner And Steffen Kosuch as well as the triumphal trip of the Australian as well as Norris failure, Lewis Hamilton’s strong catch-up and Nico Hülkenberg’s zero number. They also explain why Max Verstappen against Charles Leclerc had no chance.
Oscar Piatri is the big winner of the Belgium weekend. Okay, in the Saturday sprint he had to be satisfied with second place behind Max Verstappen in the Red Bull. However, he expanded his World Cup lead against McLaren neighbor Lando Norris.
The Grand Prix was perfect for the Australian on Sunday. Started by position two, Piatri took up a few small Norris errors to claw the lead in round five when the race starts.
Once in the front, Piatri controlled the action and managed his lead so as not to overload the tires. A sovereign and deserved victory.
Video: The analysis of the rain spectacle in Spa
The re-start was done, however, because a violent rain shower made a regular start impossible. The race management initially tried a start behind the safety car by Bernd Mayländer, but broke it off again. The second attempt only followed after more than an hour’s break – after four rounds behind the Safety Car it finally started.
The previously leading pole man Norris screwed up the re-start and had to line behind Piatri. When the change from intermediates to slicks was in round 12/13, Norris still tried to secure an advantage with an alternative choice of tires (hard penus instead of medium like Piatri). However, the Brit could no longer benefit from its “back” lower tire wear. Piatri was too far away.
Formula 1 in Spa: Verstappen and the unfortunate setup
Max Verstappen only started from fourth place behind Ferrari-Pilot Charles Leclerc after smaller qualifying errors. Since Leclerc-contrary to Verstappen-had geared his aero setup with fewer wings on top speed, there was no way for the Red Bull throughout the race. Interestingly, this was exactly the trick that Verstappen helped to win a sprint against Piatri on Saturday.
The graph of the course of the race shows that the two McLaren drove out on the pursuers Leclerc and Verstappen for 15 seconds and expanded this lead in the other 30 laps by another five seconds.
Having behind (in seconds) over racing rounds of the individual cars on racing winner Piatri
George Russell in Mercedes as fifth and all other drivers, on the other hand, had neither the pace in the wet nor in the dry racing section to keep up with the tip.
Hamilton catches up, Williams with statement
A perfectly timed pit stop brought Lewis Hamilton in the second Ferrari after catastrophic qualifying, at least again in seventh place.
A statement set Williams, which cheered after a few weaker races over Alex Albon’s sixth place.
Liam Lawson and Racing Bulls with eighth place and clean-rookie Gabriel Bortoleto can also be satisfied. Its stable colleague Nico Hülkenberg was washed out of the points with degrading tires and an additional tire change. Pierre Gasly secured the last point in the alpine.