Belgian GP 2025: Piastri beats Norris on the first racing lap

Oscar Piastri won the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps on 27 July from second on the grid, finishing 3.415 seconds ahead of his McLaren team-mate Lando Norris. The race was settled on its first racing lap, after more than an hour of waiting for the rain to ease. Charles Leclerc took third for Ferrari, ahead of Max Verstappen.

How Piastri passed Norris

The original start was called off during the formation lap, with drivers reporting almost no visibility in the spray. When the race finally got going at 16:20 local time, the field ran four laps behind the safety car before a rolling start on lap 5 of 44.

Norris slid out of La Source. Piastri stayed glued to him through Eau Rouge and Raidillon, took the tow on the Kemmel Straight and was ahead before Les Combes. That was the lead change, and the only one.

McLaren then split the strategies as the track dried. Piastri swapped intermediates for mediums a lap before Norris, who had a slow stop, took hards and rejoined several seconds back. The harder tyre was supposed to give Norris a late attack on a fading Piastri. He brought the gap under four seconds with two laps left, then ran wide at La Source, his third costly mistake of the second half. Piastri's mediums held.

Behind them, Leclerc spent most of the afternoon with Verstappen in his mirrors. Ferrari's lower-downforce set-up gave him enough speed on the straights, and he finished 1.5 seconds clear. George Russell was fifth after passing Alex Albon early, and Albon kept sixth under steady pressure from Lewis Hamilton.

The teammate duels at Spa

McLaren. Norris took pole by 0.085 seconds on Saturday; Sunday went the other way. In their head-to-head, Norris now leads 7–6 in qualifying and Piastri 7–6 in races, in our count. The second column is the one that pays points.

Ferrari. Hamilton had a lap deleted for track limits and went out in Q1, then started from the pit lane after taking new power unit elements. Seventh was a decent recovery. Leclerc still won both sides of the duel and leads Hamilton vs Leclerc 10–2 in races this season on F1 Duels.

Red Bull. Yuki Tsunoda qualified seventh, his best grid slot as a Red Bull driver, and finished 13th. He was called in for slicks just after passing the pit entry, and the extra lap on worn intermediates dropped him into traffic he could not clear. Verstappen vs Tsunoda reads 11–0 in qualifying and 9–0 in races.

Mercedes. Kimi Antonelli also went out in Q1 and also started from the pit lane with a power unit change. He finished 16th. Russell leads their duel 12–1 on Saturdays and 9–0 on Sundays.

Further down, Sauber let Gabriel Bortoleto past Nico Hülkenberg, and Bortoleto took ninth while Hülkenberg's second stop handed the last point to Pierre Gasly. Lance Stroll finished ahead of Fernando Alonso, a rare race win in that pairing, though Alonso still leads their qualifying count 12–0.

What it means for the title

Piastri's sixth win of the season turned a seven-point lead over Norris into 16. Verstappen is third, 81 points behind. It was McLaren's sixth one-two of 2025 and their first win at Spa since 2012. The championship is now a straight fight between the two drivers in the same car. Every verdict from the weekend is on the Belgian GP duels page.