McLaren’s Oscar Piastri won a strategic battle with title rival team-mate Lando Norris to take his sixth win of the season at the Belgian Grand Prix and open up a 16-point championship lead over the Briton. Behind them Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc won a tight tussle with Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to take third place. 

Ahead of the race heavy rain had been expected and in the final build-up before the start the showers arrived. The cars left the grid on the formation lap but with visibility quickly becoming difficult the session was red-flagged.

With even heavier rain on the way, a long delay followed but after 1 hour and 20 minutes under awnings, the race finally got underway on Intermediate tyres behind the Safety Car. 

When the SC left the track to allow a rolling start polesitter Norris took off into the lead. However, the McLaren driver suffered a small slide at the exit of La Source and Piastri pounced. 

The Australian slipstreamed his team-mate up the hill to Raidillon and on the Kemmel straight and as they ran towards Les Combes he powered past his team-mate to take the lead. 

Behind them, Leclerc held station in third and though Verstappen put the Ferrari driver under pressure the Monegasque driver was able to position his car well enough to hold on. Behind them, however, fifth-place starter Alex Albon was coming under heavy pressure from Mercedes’ George Russell and the Briton was able to sneak past on the opening laps to drop the Thai driver back to sixth ahead of the second Red Bull of Yuki Tsunoda.

Conditions were now rapidly improving and on lap 12, Lewis Hamilton, who had climbed to 14th after a pit lane start, was the first to make the move to slick tyres and after fitting Medium tyres and a lap later the leaders reacted and Piastri, Leclerc and Verstappen filed into the pits for Medium tyres. 

Norris, too close to his McLaren team-mate, was forced to carry on and the delay would cost the Briton dearly. Losing time, Norris was offered an alternative strategy and a one-stop race and he made his stop on lap 14 for Hard tyres. He emerged in second, behind Piastri. Leclerc held third ahead of Verstappen, with Russell still fifth ahead of Albon and earlier stopper Hamilton. The big losers from the top 10 were Yuki Tsunoda and Racing Bulls driver Isack Hadjar. Later stops for both cost them significant time and both dropped down the order. 

With Piastri attempting to manage his Medium tyres, Norris gradually began to eat into the Australian’s nine-second lead. Piastri was soon reporting that he was also feeling some degradation and that it would be “tough to get to the end” on the C3 but despite the tyre wear he continued on. 

Behind them, Verstappen was still attempting to chase down Leclerc, but the Ferrari driver was matching the Dutchman’s times well and he was able to maintain a two-second gap back to the Red Bull. 

As the race headed for its final third, Norris began to reel in Piastri. Regularly running half a second faster than the Australian he closed to just over five seconds behind with five laps left. Verstappen also began to close in on Leclerc and at the same distance from the flag the champion had reduced a 2.3s deficit to just 1.2 seconds. 

But though both the defending champion and the title contender pushed hard to create a fighting chance neither could gain enough before the chequered flag.

In the end, Norris’ chance evaporated in a late lock up that cost him over a second and with the hap spreading he throttled back to finish more than three second off race winner Piastri.

Leclerc also managed to hold on and with good tyre life in reserve he was able to stretch the gap to Verstappen to 1.5s over the final two laps. Russell took fifth ahead of Albon and Hamilton. Liam Lawson scored good points for Racing Bulls with eighth place, while Gabriel Bortoleto finished ninth ahead of final points finisher Gasly. 

2025 FIA Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix – Race 
1 Oscar Piastri McLaren/Mercedes 44 1:25'22.601 
2 Lando Norris McLaren/Mercedes 44 1:25'26.016 3.415
3 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 44 1:25'42.786 20.185
4 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Honda RBPT 44 1:25'44.332 21.731
5 George Russell Mercedes 44 1:25'57.464 34.863
6 Alexander Albon Williams/Mercedes 44 1:26'02.527 39.926
7 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 44 1:26'03.280 40.679
8 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls/Honda RBPT 44 1:26'14.634 52.033
9 Gabriel Bortoleto Sauber/Ferrari 44 1:26'19.035 56.434
10 Pierre Gasly Alpine/Renault 44 1:26'35.315 1'12.714
11 Oliver Bearman Haas/Ferrari 44 1:26'35.746 1'13.145
12 Nico Hülkenberg Sauber/Ferrari 44 1:26'36.229 1'13.628
13 Yuki Tsunoda Red Bull/Honda RBPT 44 1:26'37.996 1'15.395
14 Lance Stroll Aston Martin/Mercedes 44 1:26'42.432 1'19.831
15 Esteban Ocon Haas/Ferrari 44 1:26'48.664 1'26.063
16 Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 44 1:26'49.322 1'26.721
17 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin/Mercedes 44 1:26'50.525 1'27.924
18 Carlos Sainz Williams/Mercedes 44 1:26'54.625 1'32.024
19 Franco Colapinto Alpine/Renault 44 1:26'57.851 1'35.250
20 Isack Hadjar Racing Bulls/Honda RBPT 43 1:25'35.543 1 lap /12.942