Belgian GP: Piastri sees off Norris in tense McLaren strategy game after rain delay

Oscar Piastri saw off a charge from Lando Norris to win the Belgian Grand Prix as McLaren played the strategy game with its drivers after a rain-delayed start at Spa.

After the race started behind the Safety Car, Piastri overtook Norris on the first lap of running and held on to win by five seconds ahead of his team-mate and extend his championship to 16 points.

Oscar Piastri wins the Belgian Grand Prix

As the rain came down at Spa, Race Control announced that the formation lap would start behind the Safety Car only to announce halfway through the lap that it had been red flagged.

Pole-sitter Lando Norris summed up the issue to McLaren: “Visibility, the standing water is not too bad.”

Max Verstappen, though, wasn’t impressed: “That’s a bit silly. If you just run a few laps… They’re way too cautious and now the rain is coming, the heavy rain. Then there’s going to be a three-hour delay.”

An hour after the scheduled start of the race, the FIA cleared up the three-hour rule, saying: “For clarification, art. 5.4.d) about the 3-hour period to run the race only applies when there’s a race interruption. In this case, the race has not started.”

That was followed by an announcement that the race would start at 16:20 local time with two laps behind the Safety Car. After an hour-and-twenty-minute delay, the drivers left the pit lane for Lap 1 of 44, with Bernd Maylander leading the field. After four laps behind Maylander, the race began with a rolling start on Lap 5.

Oscar Piastri was all over the back of Norris at the start, and powered passed his team-mate down the Kemmel Straight and into Les Combes. Piastri immediately broke away as Norris had one eye on his mirrors which were filled by Charles Leclerc and Max Verstappen. Norris reported a battery issue, Will Joseph replying: “It’s coming back up. We just discharged a lot when we did the Safety Car restart.”

At the back of the field, Carlos Sainz, Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Antonelli all made up on position as the drivers, who were pulled off the grid as their respective teams made changes to their cars ahead of the race, overtook Lance Stroll.

Hamilton went on to overtake Sainz, Franco Colapinto, Nico Hulkenberg and Pierre Gasly to run 13th on Lap 10. His former Mercedes team-mate George Russell was also on the move as he passed Alex Albon for fifth.

F1 2025: The season’s winners and losers

👉 The results of the F1 2025 championship

👉 The updated Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championship standings

Piastri ran first by just over one-and-a-half seconds ahead of Norris, and reported that the changeover to slicks “wasn’t far off”. Behind the McLaren team-mates, Leclerc kept Verstappen at bay, shutting the door on the World Champion when he attacked at Pouhon.

Leclerc complained about his tyres, telling Ferrari: “I don’t know what the downforce is, but my tyres are gone.” His team-mate Hamilton was told to box on Lap 12, the first driver to swap to slicks as he bolted on a set of medium Pirelli tyres. The drivers behind him in the running all pitted one after the other.

And in came Piastri on Lap 13. Mediums for the race leader, who was followed in by Leclerc and Verstappen while Norris stayed out and led. That sparked a huge run into the pits, including a double-stack for Mercedes. Norris pitted a lap after Piastri and dropped nine seconds behind his team-mate, but he was put onto the hard tyres.

Hamilton was the big winner in the pit stops, up from 13to to seventh. The big losers were Yuki Tsunoda, who dropped to 12th place and Isack Hadjar who fell out of the top ten down to 17th. Hadjar lost more places to Stroll and Sainz.

Halfway through the race, Piastri was leading Norris by eight seconds, with Leclerc seven seconds further back and two ahead of Verstappen.

Heading into the second half of the race, the action ramped up as the drying track and DRS made it easier for the drivers to overtake – at least amongst the back half. The top ten remained stationary barring a swap at Sauber as Hulkenberg gave way for Gabriel Bortoleto.

Despite Norris, who was on a one-stopper, closing the gap to Piastri to eight seconds, he lost a second to his team-mate with a mistake at Pouhon. Piastri, though, told McLaren his medium tyres probably wouldn’t last to the end of the race as the Briton recovered and began to close in again.

Further back, Gasly led Tsunoda and Oliver Bearman in a three-way fight for 11th. They were, however, five seconds down on a points-paying position. Hulkenberg pitted on Lap 33, promoting Gasly into the points. Back on the action, Hulkenberg attacked Ocon for 14th with Antonelli also overtaking the Haas driver only for Ocon to fight back.

Back at the front, Norris nibbled into Piastri’s lead, reducing it to seven seconds with seven laps remaining. Behind them, Leclerc had Verstappen on his rear wing and told his race engineer Bryan Bozzi to “leave me alone please”.

Piastri’s lead was down to 4.4s heading into lap 41 of 44. A lap later, it was 3.8s. However, another mistake from Norris cost him time as he fell five seconds behind his team-mate as he began the penultimate lap – going too deep at La Source.

Piastri raced to the victory, his sixth of the season, to extend his lead in the Drivers’ Championship to 17 points. Norris was four seconds down at the line. It was McLaren’s sixth one-two of the F1 2025 championship.

The McLaren team-mates were joined on the podium by Leclerc, who held off Verstappen. Russell was fifth ahead of Albon, Hamilton and Lawson. Bortoleto and Gasly completed the points.

Belgian Grand Prix result

1 Oscar Piastri McLaren winner
2 Lando Norris McLaren +3.415
3 Charles Leclerc Ferrari +20.185
4 Max Verstappen Red Bull Racing +21.731
5 George Russell Mercedes +34.863
6 Alexander Albon Williams +39.926
7 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari +40.646
8 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls +52.919
9 Gabriel Bortoleto Kick Sauber +57.231
10 Pierre Gasly Alpine +73.596
11 Oliver Bearman Haas F1 Team +73.998
12 Yuki Tsunoda Red Bull Racing +75.878
13 Nico Hulkenberg Kick Sauber +74.524
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin +80.714
15 Esteban Ocon Haas F1 Team +86.893
16 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes +87.271
17 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin +88.320
18 Carlos Sainz Williams +93.068
19 Franco Colapinto Alpine +96.420
20 Isack Hadjar Racing Bulls +1 lap

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