Calm assurance and closure were once more the hallmarks of victory for Oscar Piastri at the Belgian Grand Prix. The 24-year-old Australian displayed purpose, conviction and touch behind the wheel to grind out a win in challenging conditions and under no little pressure in seeing off his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris. The title fight will be decided between the two drivers and, as at Spa, single significant moments may prove decisive.
In what was far from a thriller, Piastri won with a dominant drive to beat Norris into second and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc into third. Max Verstappen was fourth for Red Bull in the team’s first race without the recently dismissed team principal Christian Horner in charge, while Lewis Hamilton made the most of the changeable, wet-dry conditions to move from 18th on the grid to finish seventh.
After a delayed start of almost an hour and 20 minutes because of heavy rain in the Ardennes mountains, when racing finally began in earnest Piastri pounced to take the lead from Norris with an opportunistic and decisive move.
He launched it with almost breathtaking commitment. As the pair plunged down the hill into Eau Rouge on the first racing lap in anger, Piastri scythed into the slot just under Norris’s gearbox in an all or nothing, fearless display. They hurtled up through Raidillon and thence with the slipstream on the Kemmel straight it was advantage Piastri as he sped past and into the lead at Les Combes.
RM Block
Norris was powerless to resist and not at fault – as his team principal, Andrea Stella, noted – the driver leading the pack out on the first lap is always vulnerable; indeed a lesson Piastri had learned from the sprint race on Saturday when Verstappen pulled an identical move on him. He was aware of its import.
“I knew that lap one was probably my best chance of winning the race,” he said. “I lifted as little as I dared through Eau Rouge and then it was enough.”
Having got to the front he was relentless in grinding out a victory and even a counter-tyre strategy from Norris could not bring him quite back into contention. Yet it required a steely resolve and, with the decision to make his medium tyres last to the finish, no little finesse, as Norris chased him down on the more durable hard rubber. For all that the McLaren is easy on its rubber, Piastri eased it on with a gentle mastery.
It was, then, another combative statement of intent from the Australian, demonstrating that even when he is on the back foot he retains a fierce determination. Once he had retaken the lead from second on the grid he was in assured control from the front, with the same measured, calm confidence that is almost disarming as it becomes ominously clear to his rivals that he has all the traits of a world champion in waiting.
It was his sixth win from 13 races this season and for all that Norris took the previous two on the trot, really no other driver has matched the Australian’s consistency. What had begun in Melbourne with a win for Norris has since become very much bossed by Piastri, who has laid down another marker that it will be remarkably hard to beat him this season, but it will be a hard-fought show.
He now leads Norris by 16 points with 11 meetings remaining in a contest that increasingly looks like it will go down to the wire. Certainly Stella believed that there was little to choose between his drivers and noted that it would likely come down to the minutiae of execution that would tell for the title.
Norris might consider that on his chase he dropped a little time, two lock-ups at La Source and going wide once at Pouhon but they were not enough to be truly decisive. He had closed to within 3.4 seconds by the end but for the final laps Piastri still had enough in the locker to hold his lead.
Norris, too, conceded that he had been well beaten and that he did not believe his minor errors had made the difference. “Oscar just did a good job [at the start], nothing more to say, committed a bit more through Eau Rouge,” he said. “That was it, Oscar deserved it today. It’s shoulda‑woulda‑coulda. Oscar deserved it and I’m sure he made a couple of mistakes, too. I couldn’t have won today.”
With rain having swept across the circuit on and off all day, another deluge began just before the start and the race was delayed after a single formation lap, because of the poor visibility caused by the spray. The cars returned to the pit lane for more an hour and 20 minutes until the FIA deemed it could begin behind the safety car and with a rolling start.
The long delay was questioned by some with the track drying – notably Red Bull and Verstappen, who had their car set up for a wet race – but the consensus was the governing body had made the right call to err on the side of caution on a circuit that is a high-speed challenge in perfect conditions.
An earlier opening in more difficult conditions would maybe have made for a more interesting race, but it is hard not to imagine that Piastri would not have exhibited similarly iron control even then as – rain or shine – the Australian very much had the measure of Spa. – Guardian
