Belgian GP conclusions: Verstappen’s goodbye kiss, Hamilton’s uncomfortable truth, Piastri’s zone

McLaren driver Oscar Piastri claimed his sixth victory of the F1 2025 season in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

Piastri took the lead from Lando Norris early on after a lengthy rain delay and saw off his team-mate’s late charge to extend his championship lead as Charles Leclerc finished third for Ferrari. Here are our conclusions from Belgium…

Oscar Piastri’s composure gives him such an important edge over Lando Norris

Be in no doubt that these are the days when World Championships are won. And lost too.

The start. The stop. The delay. The pent-up nervous energy. The adrenaline rising. Peaking. Falling. Rising again.

Getting into the usual routine. Then being shaken out of it. Having to reset all over again.

Whenever a race is delayed and/or interrupted like the Belgian Grand Prix, such fundamentals as concentration and composure become just as important as the usual factors of skill, judgement, strategy choices, wing levels and the rest.

F1 drivers have a wonderful knack of making these things look easy, hence why nobody ever really talks about the disturbing effect of delays to the start.

Yet do not underestimate how emotionally taxing and psychologically sapping long, uncertain afternoons like Sunday at Spa can be.

There is a reason why in sports like cricket, for instance, wickets often tend to fall soon after scheduled breaks when batsmen are briefly taken out of ‘the zone’ – that little personal bubble of full focus and flow – before having to gradually feel their way back into the rhythm all over again.

It should come as no surprise to anyone who has watched this season closely – actually, make that the last three seasons – that of the two title contenders at Spa, Oscar Piastri handled the unusual challenges of the day more adeptly than Lando Norris.

Oscar Piastri vs Lando Norris: McLaren head-to-head scores for F1 2025

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head qualifying statistics between team-mates

👉 F1 2025: Head-to-head race statistics between team-mates

For Norris, this was worryingly reminiscent of the way he collapsed over the course of the last race of a stop-start nature in Brazil last year, a little slide on the exit of the very first corner of the delayed race instantly gifting the initiative to Piastri.

That it came straight after a rolling start, a measure pretty much designed to remove the tension and jeopardy from a race-start situation, only made the mistake seem extra sloppy.

And in his attempts to hunt Piastri down later on, the errors – a moment in the middle of Pouhon followed by two separate lockups at La Source – kept coming as Norris wasted what had promised to be a handy tyre advantage for the closing laps.

Piastri?

That clone of Max Verstappen, with his heart rate running constantly at three BPL (Beats Per Lap) no matter the situation, was as composed as ever, decisive in the overtake and once again in total control – it’s becoming a mark of his victories – from the moment he nosed ahead on the opening lap.

It was the most vivid demonstration since their attempts at passing Max Verstappen in Miami of the intrinsic differences between the McLaren drivers, the best of Piastri and those familiar Norris frailties rolled into 44 laps.

Perhaps more than any other so far in 2025, this race encapsulated why one McLaren driver is rapidly growing into the stature of a World Champion and the other still has quite a lot of maturing to do to reach that level.

Much has been made in this column over recent races about the effect of McLaren’s changes to the car and how they have potentially unlocked Norris’s near-unbeatable performance level of late 2024.

There was hope for Norris again at Spa in that regard, overcoming a significant deficit to Piastri early in the weekend to secure one of his most impressive pole positions to date.

It was an excellent recovery, if only one that merely delayed the inevitable.

Almost from the start this had the feel of one of those Piastri weekends. Even more so when the variables came into play shortly before the start.

Yet as the title battle rises to a climax over the coming months, all these matters will become secondary to the old-age principle of keeping calm and executing the high-pressure moments upon which individual race victories and World Championships hinge.

On that score, Piastri has Norris covered every single time.

And that, you suspect, will ultimately make all the difference in 2025.

Staying at Red Bull? Max Verstappen can kiss goodbye to the F1 2026 title too

Time for a quick quiz.

Question 1: What do Michael Schumacher, Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton all have in common?

Answer: All three have enjoyed spells of dominance in F1 so far this century.

Question 2: What else links this multiple-title-winning trio?

All of them went off the cliff edge along with their respective teams – Ferrari, Red Bull and Mercedes – the moment a rule change brought their time at the top to a sharp, shuddering stop.

In all three cases, it came as a surprise how the music suddenly stopped and the good times were replaced overnight by the bad.

The trick to avoid such a fate, it seems, is to act ruthlessly, see the waterfall coming and jump to the next stone before it’s too late.

Jenson Button was one who got it right, recognising that Brawn GP/Mercedes could not provide what he needed for the short term just weeks after claiming the 2009 title and making the move to McLaren to ensure that he kept winning races.

There was hope, at least for a while, that might be the case with Max Verstappen too.

For one thing, Max’s talent has always granted him an inordinate amount of power for a racing driver, especially so for one attached to Red Bull, bringing with it the freedom to dictate his own future to a large degree.

And if the decline of their teams came as a shock to Schumacher, Vettel and Hamilton, it cannot be said that the warning signs, flashing with ever-increasing intensity for some time already, haven’t been there for Verstappen.

For pretty much 12 months now – ever since Adrian Newey, Jonathan Wheatley and more headed for the exit and the dominant car of 2023 was developed into what Max himself described at one stage as “a monster” – the reasons to leave Red Bull have outweighed the reasons to stay.

Yet as revealed by PlanetF1.com on Saturday at Spa, Verstappen is now expected to remain where he is for 2026 and confirmation that George Russell and Andrea Kimi Antonelli will stay with Mercedes could arrive as soon as this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

See that, Max?

That’s the edge of the cliff approaching fast.

As the rumours of a move to Mercedes grew over the last month, there was a school of thought that Verstappen would be foolish to move for 2026 without first finding out what the new Red Bull Powertrains-Ford engine is capable of.

Yet the signs that Mercedes will have a considerable advantage under the new rules – not least Christian Horner’s admission that it would be “embarrassing” for Merc if RBPT-Ford produce a better power unit for 2026 – have persisted for too long now to be dismissed.

It is surprising – confusing – that Verstappen, of all drivers, has not jumped at the opportunity to make the leap to keep the wins and World Championships rolling in.

Time spent not winning at this stage of his career is time wasted.

Giving Red Bull another year should, at least, afford him a wider array of options going forward.

It is entirely feasible, for instance, that Aston Martin, with Newey and Honda to offer, will now overtake Mercedes as Verstappen’s most likely post-Red Bull destination.

Who knows? The Ferrari avenue might even reopen come the end of next season.

And the chances of a sabbatical over the next couple of years may have just increased too.

The worst-case scenario for a driver of Verstappen’s stature in 2026 is suffering the sort of write-off season that Vettel had with Red Bull in 2014.

After all the success he’s had over recent years, it is almost impossible to imagine a competitor of Max’s intensity tolerating a season of fighting over scraps, potentially even being frozen out of the points at some races as the Mercedes-powered cars reign supreme.

If Red Bull-Ford’s worst fears are realised early next year, is it beyond the realms of possibility that Verstappen could decide to sit out the season?

To spend time with his young family? Take part in the endurance races he’s always wanted to try out? And wait for the stampede for his signature to commence for 2027?

Denied the car he needs to assert his natural advantage over the rest, Max – now 81 points behind Oscar Piastri after this race – is almost certain to be dethroned at the end of 2025.

Now he has decided to stay at Red Bull, he can probably kiss goodbye to the 2026 title too.

Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari ‘documents’ reveal an uncomfortable truth

There is a belief in sport that the older an athlete gets, the harder he must work to keep up.

As the effects of age begin to show, and the signs of decline and deterioration become ever more difficult to conceal, he has to find alternative ways to compete with his younger rivals.

The most famous example in an F1 context? Easy. Niki Lauda, 1984.

As it quickly dawned on him that he just couldn’t live with the raw pace of Alain Prost, his younger McLaren team-mate, Lauda effectively gave up hope of qualifying ahead and channelled all his energies and experience into optimising a car for race day.

The result? A third, and his most accomplished, title triumph.

Lauda was 35 that season, five years younger than Lewis Hamilton is now.

Almost seven months into his fifth decade, it appears Hamilton has reached the stage where he must find different ways to keep up too.

In an astonishing press conference on Thursday at Spa, Hamilton told media including PlanetF1.com of the lengths he has been going to in order to ensure that his Ferrari career does not go the same way as Fernando Alonso and Sebastian Vettel, established champions who failed to win the title at Maranello.

Haven’t you heard how he spent the three-week break between Silverstone and Spa?

How he held a series of meetings with the key figures at Ferrari, from the chairman and the chief executive to the team principal?

How he also met with the technical director, telling him exactly what he wants from the 2026 car?

How he submitted two separate “documents” to the team as well, one proposing changes to the structure of the team and another detailing his complaints with the current car?

Oh, and how he trained “maybe a little bit too hard” over the break for good measure?

All sounds very impressive, demonstrating an attention to detail few have associated with Hamilton over the years – another sign of all those private conversations with Vettel rubbing off on him, maybe? – and his determination to have a happy ending in F1.

Yet does his sudden preparedness to “go the extra mile” (his words) also reveal the uncomfortable truth that he is no longer the driver he once was?

And that he increasingly feels the need to compensate for it in other areas?

The sympathetic, generous view entering this season was that the Lewis Hamilton of old was still in there somewhere and just needed the right car to be unleashed once more.

It is still there in flashes – the assured pole-to-flag sprint win in China, that classic touch and feel of his coming to the fore in tricky conditions in the early laps at Spa – but by and large the struggles of his late-Mercedes career have bled into what was supposed to be a fresh start with Ferrari.

From the pit lane to P7 at Spa, and the inevitable Driver of the Day award, might have looked impressive on paper.

Yet in reality it was the kind of recovery drive Sergio Perez would specialise in at Red Bull, noteworthy only in the context of the previous day’s disaster.

Two Q1 exits in the space of 24 hours on Friday and Saturday, in what proved the second-fastest car at Spa in the hands of Charles Leclerc, resembled rock bottom for Hamilton. The only way after that was up.

And even if he is eventually provided with the right car, what evidence is there at this stage to remotely suggest that he would overcome Leclerc in a straight fight in equal machinery?

The suspicion that Hamilton already knew deep down that his best days were behind him when he decided to join Ferrari, but could not bring himself to retire without first experiencing life inside F1’s most sacred team, is becoming increasingly credible as this season unfolds.

Try as he might to avoid the same fate as Alonso and Vettel, Hamilton’s time at Ferrari already seems destined to end in disappointment too.

Andrea Kimi Antonelli is suffering from a crisis of confidence

There was a school of thought earlier this season that Monza 2024 was the best thing that ever happened to Andrea Kimi Antonelli.

On the weekend he was confirmed as a Mercedes driver for 2025, regarded as the most exciting driver to arrive in F1 since Max Verstappen, that his first FP1 appearance ended so disastrously served as a warning to the team.

No matter how highly the team thought of him, Mercedes could not wind Antonelli up and watch him go as Red Bull did with a young Max, an explosion of raw pace, to-the-manor-born confidence and uncontained aggression.

No, instead this was a natural talent that needed to be nurtured and handled with care.

Antonelli’s impressive start to life in F1 could be traced back directly to the lessons learned from the accident at Parabolica last September, the team approaching each race at the start of 2025 in a very structured, very methodical, very Mercedes way on his side of the garage.

And even if the season were to stop now, Antonelli’s 2025 – culminating in his pole position for the sprint in Miami and a maiden podium finish in Canada – would still be remembered as one of the more distinguished rookie campaigns of the modern era.

Yet it is alarming how his season has suffered a sharp downturn and how the confidence of Antonelli, who appeared to have been crying in the immediate aftermath of qualifying on Saturday, has crumbled along with it.

He looks less like the heir to Hamilton right now and more the Second Coming of Kevin Magnussen.

The Magnussen comparison is particularly apt for his debut season in 2014 unfolded in a remarkably similar way.

Magnussen, you’ll recall, claimed a podium on his debut for McLaren yet, unusually for a rookie, became increasingly scrappy and error prone as the season developed and the team’s pursuit of Fernando Alonso intensified.

The career of Magnussen, regarded as a potential World Champion by those who worked with him closely as a youngster, never really recovered from the blow of being benched to make space for Alonso for 2015.

It is perhaps no coincidence, then, that Antonelli’s early poise has been lost, and his performances have become increasingly rash, in the weeks since Mercedes’ talks with Verstappen were plunged into the public domain.

That’s what pressure, be it real or imagined, can do to someone so young.

Yet with the threat to his seat now extinguished, the boy wonder has an opportunity to take a breath, reset and start all over again.

Much like the aftermath of Monza, this crisis of confidence will demand as much from the team as Antonelli himself.

The FIA has become overly cautious in wet conditions

It was, as ever in these situations, Max Verstappen who called it right.

As others – some with clearer visibility – complained about the conditions during that formation lap behind the Safety Car, it was left to the ultimate racer’s racer to say what the watching world was thinking when the red flag was thrown.

“That’s a bit silly,” Max said over team radio. “We should just run a few laps. Jesus.

“Way too cautious. And now the rain is coming, the heavy rain, and there’s going to be a three-hour delay.”

A cautious approach at a circuit that now gives people the creeps following several tragedies – that first climb through Eau Rouge at racing speed, once a highlight, has become the most tense moment of the season – is understandable.

Yet the FIA’s decision making in heavy rain – see also the extended number of laps behind the Safety Car to the extent that the track was dry in parts by the time the race finally began – has become too conservative generally.

On this occasion, it robbed spectators of a potentially classic wet Belgian Grand Prix and defeated the objective for the likes of Verstappen and Oliver Bearman, drivers who elected for high-downforce setups ahead of qualifying on the assumption that rain would be a decisive factor in the race.

Why, you wonder, should drivers and teams go to the effort of preparing their cars for extreme-wet conditions in the future if Race Control will not permit racing in heavy rain?

The way Verstappen’s victory in Brazil last year – in conditions not much better than those at the scheduled start time at Spa – instantly entered F1 folklore served as a welcome reminder that wins in the wet are still where legends are made.

Too often now, though, the drivers are sat with their feet up in the conditions in which they should be shining.

Surely there is scope for a better balance between safety and entertainment.

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