The Red Bull driver is unstoppable! Max Verstappen takes victory in the sprint race at Spa, beating early leader Oscar Piastri.
After spots of rain had fallen as the cars initially lined up on the starting grid 20 minutes ahead of the scheduled start time, it began coming down heavily ten minutes later.
The race started at 17:35 local time behind the safety car, which mandated all the cars to start the race on full wet tyres.
They were sent around for five formation laps, which was originally announced as four before one more was added in a bid to clear more water by the cars running at reduced speed.
This meant when the action did get going the distance was reduced from 15 to 11 laps, with several drivers including polesitter Verstappen reporting conditions were already good enough for intermediate tyres early in the initial formation lap procession.
When the safety car finally came in, plenty of drivers chose to pit and switch to inters.
This included Piastri from just behind Verstappen and the McLaren driver was joined in making the final formation lap call by Carlos Sainz, Pierre Gasly and Lewis Hamilton – with the Alpine racer emerging behind Piastri as several teams had to hold their cars as others pitted around them.
Verstappen did not complete lap one on the track as he too came in for inters, joined by Charles Leclerc and Lando Norris behind – two drivers that could not stop on the final formation lap as they were running behind their team-mates and facing a potentially very long double-stack stop.
Leclerc got a long hold anyway as Ferrari had to wait for several cars to come by in the pitlane, with Verstappen slightly delayed waiting for Norris to come past.
When he re-emerged from the pits, Piastri had already swept away from La Source and was in the lead with a 1.5 seconds advantage early in lap two.
Verstappen had halved that one lap later, but then the race was suspended by a safety car period after Fernando Alonso spun off while running behind Nico Hulkenberg in an incident that will be investigated after the race as it was labelled a possible “impeding” infraction on the FIA timing screens.
The race resumed at the start of lap six, with Verstappen sticking right with Piastri as they powered back up to speed and then immediately blasting ahead on the first time they ran back onto the Kemmel Straight having shot through the Eau Rouge/Raidillon sequence with the McLaren fractionally ahead.
Verstappen then ran clear to an easy win, ending up with a 6.6s final margin of victory over Piastri.
So more championship points for Max Verstappen following this sprint race win and yet the highlight was Oscar Piastri leading and then taking a solid P2 for McLaren.
Belgian Grand Prix, sprint race results:
1 Max Verstappen Red Bull 24:58.433
2 Oscar Piastri McLaren +6.677s
3 Pierre Gasly Alpine +10.733s
4 Carlos Sainz Ferrari +12.648s
5 Charles Leclerc Ferrari +15.016s
6 Lando Norris McLaren +16.052s
7 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes +16.757s*
8 George Russell Mercedes +16.822s
9 Esteban Ocon Alpine +22.410s
10 Daniel Ricciardo AlphaTauri +22.806s
11 Lance Stroll Aston Martin +25.007s
12 Alexander Albon Williams +26.303s
13 Valtteri Bottas Alfa Romeo +27.006s
14 Kevin Magnussen Haas +32.986s
15 Zhou Guanyu Alfa Romeo +36.342s
16 Logan Sargeant Williams +37.571s
17 Nicolas Hülkenberg Haas +37.827s
18 Yuki Tsunoda AlphaTauri +39.267s
Sergio Perez Red Bull DNF
Fernando Alonso Aston Martin DNF
*Five-second time penalty for causing a collision with Sergio Perez
Belgian Grand Prix sprint race review as reported by Formula1.com.
Red Bull driver Max Verstappen converted pole position into victory during Saturday’s Sprint race at the Belgian Grand Prix, claiming the lead back from McLaren rival Oscar Piastri after the two drivers opted for different strategies in a captivating wet encounter.
Amid plenty of action on the slippery Spa-Francorchamps circuit, Alpine’s Pierre Gasly made the most of the conditions to round out the podium, while Lewis Hamilton was demoted from fourth to seventh after the Mercedes man clashed with the other Red Bull of Sergio Perez and picked up a penalty.
With rain a theme of the weekend so far, and following a post-Shootout break in the weather, the heavens opened again just before the 1705 local time scheduled start of the Sprint – officials deciding to push it back by 30 minutes to allow the latest downpour to pass.
By the time the formation lap began on mandated full wet tyres and behind the Safety Car (which became several laps), the sun had burst back through the clouds and lit up the track, promising an early switch to intermediates and potentially slick rubber as the race developed.
When the Safety Car peeled into the pits, with the race now running to 11 laps, several cars immediately boxed to swap wets for intermediates – Piastri, Carlos Sainz, Gasly, Hamilton, Perez, Daniel Ricciardo, Alex Albon, Lance Stroll, Valtteri Bottas and Nico Hulkenberg making that call.
Meanwhile, having stayed out and taken the rolling start, pole-sitter Verstappen held on to P1 ahead of Charles Leclerc, Lando Norris, Esteban Ocon and George Russell, radioing that “we need to box this lap” as he struggled to make his wet tyres work in the ever-drying conditions.
At the end of that first racing lap, Verstappen and the rest of the wet runners pitted, with Piastri’s rapid pace on the intermediate giving him the lead when the reigning double world champion rejoined the action – setting up a thrilling battle.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.verstappen-overhauls-piastri-in-rain-hit-sprint-race-at-spa-francorchamps.51CSySa51ml8ci1Cc9C36n.html
Max Verstappen has defended Red Bull’s “safer call” to not pit at the earliest opportunity in Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix sprint race, a move which cost him the lead.
To reduce spray after a late downpour, five formation laps were run behind the safety car ahead of a rolling start.
Although drivers reported conditions were clear for intermediate tyres, half the field stayed put for an extra lap on full wets. This was to avoid losing time to a double-stack pitstop and a delayed release in a congested pitlane.
Polesitter Verstappen remained on the circuit while second-starting Oscar Piastri dived into the pits. Red Bull called in Verstappen a lap later but held the double-world champion for a slower 3.2 seconds to avoid a collision with McLaren’s Lando Norris.
This left Verstappen to resume 1.7s behind Piastri. However, he reclaimed the lead thanks to a powerful tow down the Kemmel Straight on lap six, following another safety car period.
Verstappen defended the strategy, saying it was better to err on the side of caution. He said: “I think it was just a safer call.
“I could come in first, but then I might be blocked by other cars; there might be a safety car and then you lose out massively. So, I didn’t mind to stay out.
“We lost one position, but we know that we are quick, and I think you could see that when we put the inter tyres on, we were flying. So, it was OK.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/verstappen-defends-safer-red-bull-pit-call-in-spa-f1-sprint/10501873/
Fernando Alonso capped off a challenging Saturday at Spa-Francorchamps for Aston Martin with a crash in the Sprint that saw him ruled out of the 100km encounter – with the Spaniard shouldering the blame on what was his 42nd birthday.
Team mate Lance Stroll had already racked up a hefty bill for the team when a gamble to try slicks in the second segment of the Sprint Shootout – which sets the grid for the Sprint – backfired, leaving the Canadian’s car in the wall at Turn 9.
Once the Sprint got under way late on Saturday afternoon, Alonso was just a few corners further down the track at Pouhon when he dipped a wheel onto the kerbs and spun into the gravel on Lap 3 of 11.
“My mistake,” said Alonso, who’d been running in P16 behind Nico Hulkenberg at the time. “I touched the kerb, or the white line or whatever, and I lost the car. I was very close to Nico, so I lost a little bit of rhythm into that corner.
“We were out of the points anyway – I think today, impossible to be in the top eight, so if one time you have to have a DNF, maybe better today than any other day.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.my-mistake-alonso-reflects-on-sprint-crash-at-the-end-of-costly-saturday-for.6x4u73bxiTQurVkm18rtEx.html
Mercedes boss Toto Wolff believes the five-second penalty that Lewis Hamilton picked up for his clash with Sergio Perez in Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix sprint race was not deserved.
Hamilton was deemed by the FIA to have been at fault for a brush with Perez as they battled for position through Paul Frere in the damp opening section of the sprint race.
The contact between the Mercedes and Red Bull left Perez with a hefty amount of damage, and the Mexican later retired from the race.
But while Perez and the FIA felt that Hamilton was to blame, Wolff thinks that his driver did nothing wrong.
“Absolute racing incident,” said Wolff. “This is a sprint race. We want to see them racing, and the argument of the damage isn’t valid because he [Perez] was going backwards before then. Massively backwards.
“I think when you look at that corner, they were side-by-side. And yeah, fair enough, it takes two to tango, but it’s a racing incident. For me, that’s pretty clear.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/hamilton-penalty-harsh-says-wolff-as-fia-explains-decision/10501952/