Oscar Piastri explains touching dedication after Belgian GP victory

After climbing from his Belgian GP-winning McLaren, Oscar Piastri wrote a note to his grandfather on a bottle of champagne.

The Australian won in Spa-Francorchamps ahead of team-mate Lando Norris, his sixth win of the season and eighth of his F1 career.

Oscar Piastri dedicates Belgian GP win to grandfather

Victory in Belgium sees Piastri draw level with Daniel Ricciardo for race wins, the former’s coming in just 59 race starts.

It was a performance that also moved his championship advantage out to 16 points after surging beyond Norris with a brave move on the first racing lap.

Wet conditions at the start of the race added to the degree of difficulty; proceedings were initially delayed by 80 minutes before four laps were spent trundling behind the Safety Car.

Once released, Piastri shadowed pole-man Norris around La Source, through Eau Rouge and Raidillon, before sweeping out from under his stablemate’s rear wing to snatch the lead as they thundered down the Kemmel Straight for the first time.

From there, a well-timed stop on a drying track and a measured performance on the medium tyre, versus the hard for Norris who pursued him relentlessly, saw the young Aussie take the win by five seconds.

“I knew it was going to help me pretty significantly,” Piastri said of the importance of his opening lap pass.

“I had a good run out of Turn 1 and then tried to be as brave as I could through Eau Rouge and was able to stay pretty close. After that, the slipstream did the rest for me. I knew that was going to be pretty important for trying to win the race today.

“I had a good restart in general,” he added.

“I was close into the last chicane, had an okay run out of the last chicane and then a good exit out of Turn 1. The move through Eau Rouge, I knew it was going to be by far my best opportunity to try and win the race. I’d been thinking about it for a while, put it that way.

“Obviously, in those conditions, it’s a little bit more difficult than if it’s dry. I knew that I had to try and do that. When I watched the onboard back, it didn’t look quite as scary as it felt in the car. I knew that I had to be very committed to pull that off.”

Lewis Hamilton was the first into the pits in drying conditions, switching from intermediates to slicks on Lap 12. Piastri followed a lap later, with Norris in for his own stop on Lap 14.

McLaren bolted on medium tyres for Piastri, while Norris took the hards. The split strategy call created uncertainty; could Piastri make his rubber last the distance, or would it fall off a cliff and necessitate a second stop, handing the initiative to his team-mate?

“We’d spoken about it before the race,” the Melburnian said of his tyre choice.

“It was quite a late decision to pit on the lap we did, but there’s risks either way. If I was in Lando’s position, I probably would have done the same thing.

“At that point, it seemed like the safest thing to do was go on the Medium, because the Hard is two steps harder here. You don’t know how it’s going to react in those conditions. If there’s a Safety Car, which often there is in those conditions, then you probably want a Medium, not a Hard. There are risks both ways, but ultimately, I’m happy with what we did.”

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Following their stops, with Norris delayed with a slow left-front change in his, the pair were split by some eight seconds. It created a tense conclusion to the race as Piastri, on the faster but more fragile medium rubber looked to protect his tyres to the flag, while Norris was able to push on in an attempt to reel his team-mate in.

And he did, for a time, but three crucial mistakes, and the slow stop, conspired against him. It left Piastri to take victory and head another McLaren one-two.

“It was a tough race. Difficult conditions at the start and then just trying to manage the Inters firstly because it was drying relatively quickly, but you can kill the Inters in a lap or two if you really want around here. So that was a bit tricky,” Piastri recounted.

“I felt good on the Mediums for about five laps, and then when I could see that the Hard on Lando’s car was not worse than the Medium, I was a bit nervous considering we had nearly 25 laps to go at that point. So, I had to be a bit careful, but it held on in the end much better than I feared. I had to manage a bit, but nothing special.”

After the race, Piastri wrote a note to his grandfather on a bottle of champagne, revealing the Belgian event was the first race he’d attended outside of Australia. It followed a similar note to his sister following the Spanish Grand Prix.

On the bottle, Piastri wrote: “To Grandad. I guess you need to come to races more often too!”

He explained of the inscription: “It’s the first race outside of Australia that he’s come to.

“One of my sisters, in Spain, that was her first race outside of Australia, and that was a good weekend. Now my grandfather the same, so maybe I need to get my family members one by one for the rest of the races. I didn’t know. It seemed like the best person to dedicate it to. It’s a nice thing to do.”

Victory in Belgium leaves Piastri with 266 points, versus 250 for Norris and Max Verstappen on 185 in an increasingly distant third in the drivers’ championship.

With eight wins to his name, Piastri has now also tied Daniel Ricciardo’s tally of F1 victories, and stands just one behind his manager, Mark Webber.

Formula 1 moves next to the Hungarian Grand Prix, the scene of Piastri’s maiden F1 win a year ago.

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