Five Formula 1 Winners & Losers: Belgian Grand Prix
Photo by XPB Images
Spa once again brought its unpredictable weather, and Formula 1 once again just prevented us from seeing it by refusing to use the wet tires or acknowledge their existence.
Here are the winners and losers from the Belgian Grand Prix.
Losers
5. Lewis Hamilton
Ferrari brought new upgrades to Spa, a track that Lewis Hamilton absolutely loves, and Hamilton responded to that exciting news by being knocked out in Q1 in both sprint qualifying and regular qualifying.
It was setting up to be a horrible weekend.
4. Isack Hadjar
This was the first time all year that Isack Hadjar was comprehensibly beaten by his teammate.
He’s had a phenomenal rookie year, but this was a bad, bad weekend for the Frenchman.
3. Kimi Antonelli
It was also a very tough weekend for rookie driver Kimi Antonelli at Mercedes who, like Hamilton, was knocked out in Q1 in both sprint qualifying and regular qualifying.
He never made up that ground, and was nowhere near the points.
He’s young. It doesn’t define him.
But it was still bad.
2. Haas
The race started wet, and then quickly changed to dry.
Because modern Formula 1 tires are so durable, and the drivers are so good at maintaining them, it was clear the top teams were going to stop only once and go to the end of the race with track position being so important at Spa.
When Haas put dry tires on for their driver Esteban Ocon, they put on a used set of mediums, even though they had brand new mediums on the truck.
They just flat out forgot to use them.
I frankly don’t know how that is possible.
1. Lando Norris
Norris had an excellent lap that put him on pole position for the race, but lost it immediately after the start due to a battery issue (it is currently unclear whether the battery issue was a mechanical issue or driver error).
After that, he was put on a different strategy than his teammate, and actually made up quite a bit of ground. I thought he was going to catch Piastri with a fight for the win.
But Lando made unforced errors and went wide, and that ruined his chance at a fight for the win.
It was still second place, and he’s only 16 points behind Piastri for the championship, but those are the mental errors you flatly can not make if you want to win the title.
Winners
5. Lewis Hamilton
Hamilton’s qualifying performance this weekend was terrible.
His race performance in the wet was absolutely outstanding, as he was the only one who was able to overtake cars on track and went all the way from 18th to 7th in the race.
It still probably wasn’t the weekend he wanted, but it could have been a lot worse.
4. Pierre Gasly
That Alpine is not very good, and Pierre Gasly consistently outdrives it to points.
He needs a better car underneath him.
Frankly, he deserves one.
3. Liam Lawson
While his teammate Isack Hadjar struggled all weekend, Lawson was excellent all weekend, coming home with 4 points for Racing Bulls.
A well deserved finish for the Kiwi.
2. Alex Albon
People may not have noticed this, because the tv broadcast didn’t show it, but Alex Albon had an incredible qualifying performance to put the car into 5th, and got a 6th place finish for Williams after a very rough few races for Williams.
With Carlos Sainz having a tough race, Williams really needed Albon to come through, and he did so.
1. Oscar Piastri
A flawless opening lap got him the lead, and mistake free laps while managing his tires kept the lead and got him the win.
It was a championship level drive for Oscar Piastri.
I know it seems hyperbolic, but these races matter a lot.
The battle is only between the two McLaren drivers.
In Britain, Piastri made the mistake and Norris was flawless.
This time, it was the other way around.
From here on out, every. Race. Matters.
