After being in second — on the grid, in the past two race results, and in Belgium a year ago — Oscar Piastri had had enough.
The McLaren star had played second fiddle to teammate Lando Norris for the past two grands prix while Norris also had pole at Spa-Francorchamps. Given that Piastri has shown all season that he’s been the stronger driver, it wasn’t an optimal situation.
So, when the race start in the Belgian Grand Prix turned out to be likewise not optimal — with showers delaying it for 90 minutes — Piastri knew he had to do something, even if it was in spite of his McLaren teammate.
The race at Spa began behind a safety car, much to Norris’ chagrin as he struggled to keep the field at bay once it pitted. It only took a few turns — at Eau Rouge, among the most famous (and challenging) corners in all of Formula One — before Piastri made his move.
It was risky — we’ve seen one of the McLaren drivers attempt a big move (Norris vs. Piastri in Montreal) and it had disastrous results, with a DNF. But this wasn’t that — Piastri completed the overtake and didn’t look back (save for a brief moment when he pitted relatively early). So his move for first paid off.
“I knew it was going to help me pretty significantly if I did,” Piastri said. “I had a good run out of Turn 1 and then tried to be as brave as I could through Eau Rouge and was able to stay pretty close. After that, the slipstream did the rest for me. I knew that was going to be pretty important for trying to win the race today.”
It was a challenge for Piastri, however.
Switching to mediums one lap before Norris went to hard tires, it was supposed to be a two-stop race. But Norris kept the pressure on just enough (hanging around eight seconds behind in P2 for the bulk of the race) that Piastri couldn’t afford to replace his disintegrating rubber late in the grand prix.
Thus, he had to make do.
He knew going in that this was a possibility, and he kept a consistent pace, even as Norris started gaining on him. The gambit paid off in his favor, and with that, Piastri was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
“We’d spoken about it before the race. It was quite a late decision to pit on the lap we did, but there’s risks either way,” Piastri said. “If I was in Lando’s position, I probably would have done the same thing. At that point, it seemed like the safest thing to do was to go on the medium, because the Hard is two steps harder here. You don’t know how it’s going to react in those conditions. If there’s a safety car, which often there is in those conditions, then you probably want a medium, not a hard. There are risks both ways, but ultimately I’m happy with what we did.”
Piastri’s win stretches his lead in the driver’s championship, as he now has a 16-point advantage over Norris and is now 81 points higher than four-time world champion Max Verstappen — who won the sprint race on Saturday at Spa.
Up next, the entirety of the grid will move to Budapest, where it will partake in the Hungarian Grand Prix.
