Oscar Piastri increased his world championship lead over Lando Norris after overtaking his team-mate and then withstanding late pressure from his title rival to win a wet-dry Belgian Grand Prix.
After heavy rain at Spa-Francorchamps had delayed the race start by 80 minutes, and then the first four laps of belated running took place behind the Safety Car, Piastri wasted little time in seizing the lead by sling-shotting past the sister McLaren down the Kemmel Straight into Les Combes – the same move Max Verstappen pulled on him to win Saturday’s Sprint.
Piastri’s initial slender early lead on a wet but drying track grew to nine seconds when Norris had to wait an extra lap to pit for slick tyres but, unlike his team-mate who opted for the medium compound, the Briton and his race engineer chose the more durable hard.
That tyre difference allowed Norris to mount a renewed challenge in the race’s second half but his charge was ultimately compromised by three small errors – the last of which came into La Source on the penultimate lap – and he came up 3.4s short in second place.
Denying his team-mate a hat-trick of successive wins, Piastri’s sixth victory of the season stretches his world championship lead to 16 points ahead of next week’s Hungarian Grand Prix – the final race before F1’s summer break.
Charles Leclerc claimed a morale-boosting podium for Ferrari in third ahead of Max Verstappen, the Monegasque withstanding early pressure from the Red Bull driver in the worst of the conditions and then finishing 1.5s clear.
Ferrari team-mate Lewis Hamilton salvaged seventh place from his largely forgettable Spa Sprint weekend, which saw him knocked out in the first part of both qualifying sessions.
Hamilton, whose car Ferrari chose to fit a fresh engine in following his poor qualifying, charged from 18th to 13th in the early very-wet laps and then gained a further six places by being the first on to slicks on lap 12.
But his momentum was checked once behind Williams’ Alex Albon, who stayed ahead of Hamilton to take sixth over the remaining laps.
George Russell finished ahead of both in fifth at the end of a disappointing weekend for Mercedes.
Liam Lawson capped a strong weekend in eighth for Racing Bulls, ahead of Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto and Alpine’s Pierre Gasly.
Belgian GP Result: Top 10
1) Oscar Piastri, McLaren
2) Lando Norris, McLaren
3) Charles Leclerc, Ferrari
4) Max Verstappen, Red Bull
5) George Russell, Mercedes
6) Alex Albon, Williams
7) Lewis Hamilton, Ferrari
8) Liam Lawson, Racing Bulls
9) Gabriel Bortoleto, Sauber
10) Pierre Gasly, Alpine
By Sky Sports
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