Bonjour, MiniFans! The Sunday sky couldn’t be more different from what we experienced on Saturday, as the beautiful sun left for rainy clouds. The rain barely stopped coming down during the morning, predicting a wet race in the depths of the Belgian forest. These conditions forces some hands, with four drivers (Sainz, Hamilton, Antonelli and Alonso) announcing they’d take a pitlane start after changing elements from their cars to try and beat the odds with help of the rain.
The formation lap was announced to take part behind the safety car, something that is never quite welcomed by fans. The amount of spray at low speeds forebode extremely low visibility except for the poleman, who even complained about how little he saw despite only having the safety car in front of him. This forced a postponed start, with race direction red flagging the race to try and beat the rain as the queue of cars lined up in the pitlane. However, the radars and the sky didn’t seem to want to cooperate, as ones were predicting further rain in a handful of minutes while the other subscribed the forecast with a dark grey colour. The rain came and left, letting the sky open up and the procedures start kicking off an hour later than planned.
Laps began to be ticked off behind the safety car as the grid checked the conditions, which were much better. Spray still lifted after the single seaters, but after four laps of calmly following Maylander, the race kicked off in a rolling start. With the drivers pushing the throttle to the floor, the spray was more prominent, but that didn’t stop Piastri from ovetaking his teammate at the end of Kemmel straight, withouth help from the DRS, to inherit the lead of the race. Despite the slippery surface, not many mistakes were seen, with just a few exceptions such as Antonelli cutting a corner.
The race was very settled during the first handful of laps, with only one driver out of position at the back truly pushing and going for overtakes. Hamilton was this character, as he was slowly but surely making up places on the timing tower. The tyres needed taken care of, with the choice of when to change to slicks hanging over strategy teams’ heads and, thus, probably the instructions of taking care of the intermediates.
Those with nothing to lose were the first ones out: Hamilton, Hulkenberg, Gasly and Alonso acted as a synchronised swimming team, pitting for mediums and speeding up as soon as they were out. At the front, the stratefy was followed without discussion in the following lap, with Piastri, Leclerc and Verstappen leaving Norris out on his own, who’d be called in the following lap and fitted with a hard instead of a medium. Meanwhile, Hamilton was setting fastest laps, comfortable with this already warmed up set of mediums, up to seventh after the initial gamble taken by Ferrari.
The attention now shifted to the front, where McLaren had chosen two different strategies for their drivers. Piastri had the same tyre as the rest of the grid, a medium that seemed more appealing on the still cold and wet track that was present during the stops, but Norris had been allowed to choose otherwise. After asking for confirmation from their driver, the team fit him with the hardest compound to try and take him to the end in case the mediums didn’t last. Their superior pace allowed them to take the risk, as Leclerc was far back enough to allow for a drop in lap time due to the slower compound.
The first mediums started to wear out way too soon for Piastri’s interests, who had even told the team over radio that he was starting to feel the degradation, but it didn’t seem like he was in the same boat as those pitting for a fresh set, with his engineer reminding him that it was going just as expected and that the plan was to make it to the end on the set. Norris kept slowly chipping away at the gap, only slightly hindered by his own mistakes by going wide in certain corners and losing the gains. Even so, the distance kept getting shorter, just as it was happening with Leclerc and Verstappen. However, the fight for third seemed a bit closer, not only because of the smaller gap, but also Verstappen’s known aggressive driving, which was keeping him barely out of Leclerc’s DRS zone.
The last few laps were characterized by Norris amping up the chomping away at the gap, managing up to eigth tenths cut off in one single lap. Even with that pace of getting close, it still seemed as if Piastri had the win in his grasp, as there wasn’t enough time left in the race to fully get rid of the gap, but the mediums hadn’t been tested that far, which left questions unanswered. With both McLarens pulling very quick laps even with their very used tyres, Piastri’s management helped him keep Norris faw back enough not to have to worry during the last lap, where his teammate finally gave up on the persecution, conceding the win as the Australian pulled his fastest lap of the day to cross the finish line in first place.
The predicted rain delayed the start for a while, mostly due to the same reason as always: Grip is more than acceptable even in intermediates, but visibility is so negligible that a crash is almost certain if the drivers are allowed to race. A delay of almost an hour was the chosen strategy to combat it, once again proving that the rain tyres aren’t up to speed with a the capabilities of a moderm F1. The race only went on when the spray wouldn’t be too much of a bother, leaving only a fraction of the race to be done in intermediates, allowing for most of it to be undertaken with slicks. McLaren managed it well, correctly choosing the strategy in order to score yet another 1-2 this season and leaving no doubt whatsoever of who will win the constructors title at the end of the year.
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