A heavily rain-impacted 2025 Belgian Grand Prix saw Oscar Piastri eventually take the race win despite starting behind his teammate Lando Norris, but it was Ferrari‘s Lewis Hamilton who was crowned Driver of the Day at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps.
The formation lap in Belgium saw the red flag be thrown because visibility was so poor, and it would be almost an hour and a half before the action finally got underway. Multiple extra formation laps behind the safety car eventually resulted in a rolling start, with Hamilton down in P18 having had a lap-time deleted in qualifying.
The seven-time world champion is known for his incredible wet-weather skills, and he immediately started using them. He picked off multiple cars who had clearly not treated their intermediate tyres with as much care, even getting three places in one lap.
He and Ferrari then made the call to be the first car into the pits for slick tyres on Lap 12. It seemed like it could be a lap too soon, but Hamilton immediately showed pace on the medium tyre and soon ended up in P7. Considering his starting position, the fact that meaningful points were now on the table was excellent news for Ferrari, especially with Charles Leclerc up in P3.
Ultimately, the need to lift and coast throughout the rest of the race meant that Hamilton was unable to make it past Alexander Albon‘s Williams and get any further up the order, but it was still a very good drive from the former Mercedes man from a terrible grid position, and one that exhibited some of his best skills.
Alex Albon delivers much-needed points
One of the happiest drivers from Saturday’s qualifying was Alex Albon, who managed to put his Williams in P5. The British team has been in poor form recently and fans would have been forgiven for expecting Albon to slide down the order as the race progressed.
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He was quickly passed by George Russell in the first few laps, but managed to settle into a rhythm once the field had moved onto the slick tyres and he delivered P6 and eight valuable points. Having Lewis Hamilton‘s Ferrari behind him for three quarters of the race cannot have been easy, but the Thai driver dealt with it calmly.
Considering that Williams had taken just eight points as a team from the last four races, and that teammate Carlos Sainz had qualified in P17, there was a huge amount of pressure on Albon to get points from a P5 start and he managed to deliver.
