Oscar Piastri put on a tire management clinic in the F1 Belgian Grand Prix to extend his championship lead with a win, after taking the lead early and never looking back.
The McLaren driver mastered the changing conditions to score his sixth win of 2025 and move 16 points ahead of teammate Lando Norris in the drivers’ standings.
The race began on a wet track, with a rolling start, with Piastri grabbing the lead from polesitter Norris at the end of the long straight after the famed Eau Rouge-Raidillon turns.
“I knew that Lap 1 was going to be my best chance of winning the race and I got a good exit off Turn 1, lifted as little as I dared in Eau Rouge, and that was enough,” he said. “Maybe the medium [tire] wasn’t the best for the last five or six laps, but we had it mostly under control.”
Piastri now leads the standings with 266 points, followed by Norris in second, with 250, and Red Bull’s Max Vertsappen third, on 185. In the Constructors, McLaren continues to run away with the title, now 268 points ahead of runners-up Ferrari, 516-248.
The race turned on tire choice, with Piastri taking the medium tire, while teammate and title rival Norris opted for the more durable but slower hard tire once the track dried enough for slicks. From there, the job for Piastri became a matter of preserving the medium tire enough to hold off his teammate.
“I kinda had the same plan [as Norris] if I were second, so I knew that was going to be the likely decision for him and the medium was the safest tire for me to be on at that point,” said Piastri. “If someone crashed and there was a safety car, at that point you want the medium for a restart and also the medium seemed to be pretty good in the Sprint yesterday.”
Norris did his best to make a race of it but locked up a couple of times as he pursued his teammate late in the race and lost precious time. In the end, he couldn’t make it happen and crossed the line 3.415 seconds adrift.
“Oscar just did a good job [on the start], nothing more to say and then there was nothing more I could do after that point.,” said Norris. “Shoulda, woulda, coulda; Oscar deserved it, we made a couple of mistakes, and he drove a perfect race. Happy for the team – our first 1-2 here for many years.”
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc also contended with a race-long pursuer in the form of Verstappen, who harried the scarlet car for the grand prix’s 44 laps.
“Max was behind the whole race – within two seconds – so it’s never easy,” said Leclerc, who crossed the line in third, 20 seconds behind the winner. “I knew that the first part of the race was the trickiest for us because maybe we didn’t have the downforce that the McLaren or Max had. We compromised the qualifying a little bit to be better in the rain today, luckily it dried up pretty quickly and then the pace was good but still Max was behind the whole race so pretty happy we managed to keep that third place.”
The race began 80 minutes late due to rain, with the original start red flagged halfway into the formation lap due to heavy rain and spray. It finally got going under a rolling start.
The Belgian GP turned out to be another disappointing event for Canadian Lance Stroll, who ended the day 14th and out of the points for the ninth time in 12 starts. His teammate Fernando Alonso fared no better, ending the day 17th.
On Saturday, Piastri started on pole for the sprint race but lost the lead to Verstappen on the opening lap. The Red Bull driver used his low downforce setup to keep Piastri at bay and win the 15-lap race. Norris finished where he started in third, despite losing a position to Leclerc at the start, retaking third on Lap 4.
Piastri’s second-place finish gave him an addition point over his teammate Norris, entering the full race on Sunday with a nine-point lead, 241-232.
