McLaren driver Lando Norris had to settle for second place at the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday, having started the race on pole position with teammate Oscar Piastri behind him.
Having won the recent Austrian and British Grand Prix, Norris was in great form heading to Spa-Francorchamps and he managed to put his McLaren on pole position with a great qualifying display on Saturday. He had teammate and direct drivers’ championship rival Piastri on the front row with him, and knew that there was a chance of moving ahead of Piastri in the standings if things went his way.
The start of the race was heavily delayed thanks to wet weather and poor visibility, but when the racing action did finally begin, Norris immediately lost the lead to his teammate and was unable to catch the Australian, meaning a big opportunity had been missed.
A deserved win for Piastri
The moment Piastri took the lead of the Belgian Grand Prix came shortly after Norris had run wide at Turn 1. After multiple formation laps, a rolling start took place. Norris went too deep into the first corner and whilst he did keep the position through Eau Rouge, Piastri had all of the momentum and breezed past on the straight before Les Combes.
As has been the norm so far this season, Norris refused to show any ill will towards his teammate when speaking to Sky Sports F1 after the race and admitted that Piastri deserved the race win having made fewer mistakes on the day.
“Oscar just did a good job (at the start). Nothing more to say. Committed a bit more through Eau Rouge, and had the slipstream and got the run,” Norris said.
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“So nothing to complain of. He did a better job in the beginning, and that was it. Nothing more I could do after that point. I would love to be up top, but Oscar deserved it today.”
Mistakes on Norris’ final stint
When the grid moved from the intermediate tyre to slicks, the McLaren‘s split their strategies, with Piastri choosing the medium and Norris making a late call in favour of the hard tyre.
For that reason, Norris expectedly made serious gains on Piastri in the latter quarter of the race as the Australian had to protect his mediums a lot more. There was every reason to think Norris could still win the race, but a couple of very costly lock-ups and the occasional run wide saw the Brit lose too much time.
When asked if he could have won the race without those errors, Norris responded: “It’s shoulda, woulda, coulda. Oscar deserved it. I’m sure he made a couple of mistakes, so if he drove a perfect race, I couldn’t have won today. I’ll review my things.
“But I’m still happy for the team. Another one-two. I think our first here for many, many years. A well deserved result for them and Oscar too.”
Despite this setback, Norris is looking forward to the Hungarian Grand Prix: “Budapest is one the best ones for me, in terms of just what I’ve done there in the past years, and it’s where I started my Formula 1 career. So, always good memories, and normally one that suits me a bit better than Spa.
“I’m happy with today. Slightly disappointed, but of course looking forward to next week.”
