Oscar Piastri wins his first Belgian Grand Prix in a race that had initially been delayed following heavy rain conditions.
Thanks to heavy rain conditions that has fallen over Spa, the formation lap would be taken under the safety car, with race control deciding to suspend the start of the race for r to visibility.
Racing would finally begin about 80 minutes later, following four laps behind the safety car, with the starting procedure being a rolling start.
Piastri managed to get a fantastic start behind his teammate Norris, and was able to snatch the lead away down the Kemmel straight, before even getting to the Les Combes chicane.
Norris complained about having a limited battery pack, having used a lot of energy under the safety car, which may have explained why he lost the lead so easily.
After his qualifying mistake yesterday, Hamilton began making good progress in the early laps to recover his standing in the race, making quick work of Sainz, Colapinto and Hulkenberg between lap 7 and 8.
Verstappen had been putting Leclerc under immense pressure on Leclerc in the early portions of the race, even looking at a move on the outside of Pouhon at one point, but Leclerc was able to frustrate Verstappen and stay in third for the time being.
Hamilton would be the first to take a punt on new tyres at the end of lap 11, going onto dry tyres, although Gasly, Hulkenberg and Alonso would respond at the same time.
Piastri would come in at the end of lap 12, with Leclerc and Verstappen doing the same in the fight for the podium. With Norris so close to Piastri, he was forced to go one more lap, losing a significant amount of time around the longest track on the F1 calendar, eventually coming out 7 seconds behind his teammate in the lead.
However, this was slightly impacted by a slow stop from the pit crew for Norris.
McLaren had put their two drivers onto different strategies though, with Piastri going onto mediums, possibly needing to make another stop, while Norris would go onto hard tyres, looking to go to the end of the race.
Such was the benefit of Hamilton’s timing of his pit stop, he would eventually climb up to 7th place, having been 13th before coming in.
The race became quite a procession in the middle portions, with a lot of management taking place, with questions popping up over whether the medium tyres would manage to make it to the end of the race.
While drivers towards the end of the field were beginning to make a second stop, Piastri was looking to bring his set of mediums to the end of the race, and with Norris’ gains being minimal all race, it looked more and more likely that he would take the victory.
Although Norris’ pace over Piastri grew significantly in the dying laps, unforced errors, including one on the penultimate lap, killed any chance of him taking the win away from his teammate.
The victory for Piastri means that his lead over Norris in the championship grows to 16 points.
The next race is the Hungarian Grand Prix, which will take place next Sunday in the final Grand Prix before the summer break.
