How does Oscar Piastri respond at the F1 Belgian Grand Prix?
Oscar Piastri’s bounce back from his penalty at Silverstone leads the F1 storylines at the Belgian Grand Prix
Formula 1 has reached the midway point of the 2025 campaign.
While two race weekends remain until the August summer shutdown 12 races are in the rear-view mirror, and 12 more remain. This week’s Belgian Grand Prix kicks off an F1 double-header, that will take the grid from historic Spa-Francorchamps this week to the Hungaroring next week at the Hungarian Grand Prix.
Then the power units will go silent, and the driver silly season will kick into full gear.
Until then we have two races, and many storylines to get to. Here are the main storylines heading into the Belgian Grand Prix.
How will Oscar Piastri rebound from Silverstone?
In the wake of the Canadian Grand Prix, which saw the first highly anticipated on-track clash between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, the big question was how Norris would respond. The battle between the McLaren teammates left Norris without a front wing, out of the race, and dropping further behind Piastri in the title fight.
Just how did Norris respond? By winning the next two races, the Austrian Grand Prix and then the British Grand Prix. But now the focus shifts to how Piastri will respond, after the ten-second penalty he received while leading at Silverstone opened the door for Norris to win his home race, and close to within eight points of Piastri at the top of the table.
In a piece on the official F1 website, several legends of the sport addressed the 2025 season so far, and in the discussion about the title fight between the McLaren pair, former title winner Jacques Villeneuve pointed to this question as one he is “waiting” to see answered.
“With Piastri, it was the first time he got a penalty at Silverstone, and that saw a bit of a change of attitude. When you’re fighting for the championship, it really changes your approach,” said Villeneuve. “We’ve seen Norris being in the lead of the championship, being behind, fighting back, so we’ve seen kind of everything that Norris is. We haven’t seen everything that Piastri is and how he reacts in certain situations.
“Will that make him better or worse? That’s what I’m waiting to see.”
We will start to get that answer this weekend.
Just how high can Sauber climb in the midfield?
Joining Norris and Piastri on the podium in Silverstone?
None other than Nico Hülkenberg, who for the first time in his F1 career, and in his 239th race start, finally finished in the top three.
Hülkenberg’s third-place finish in the British Grand Prix propelled Sauber up the standings, as the team now sits sixth in the Constructors’ Championship table. But just how high can they climb?
Hülkenberg believes they are “serious” midfield contenders now.
“Whilst we’ve made some really good improvements since Barcelona, today [at Silverstone] is obviously circumstantial, and the conditions made this race and this result possible,” the veteran driver said in the FIA Press Conference following the British Grand Prix.
“But I feel in the midfield fight we’ve definitely gained some momentum, and we are a serious competitor there. That’s where our fight is, but it’s always about maximising every race, every weekend, and just trying to do well.”
Hülkenberg’s point about Barcelona is not to be ignored. Sauber brought an entirely new floor to the Spanish Grand Prix, and since then, they have been in the points at each of the four races. Hülkenberg finished fifth in Barcelona, punctuated by an overtake of Lewis Hamilton on the penultimate lap of the race, and then eighth at the Canadian Grand Prix. Both drivers got into the points at the following race, as he finished ninth and rookie Gabriel Bortoleto finished eighth at the Austrian Grand Prix.
Then came the stunning podium.
Following the Spanish Grand Prix, both Hülkenberg and Chief Operating and Chief Technical Officer Mattia Binotto noted that the upgrade package had unlocked improved pace.
“The initial conclusion is that the car seemed to perform much better in the wake of other cars than before,” said Binotto.
“The car felt good all weekend,” reported Hulkenberg. “And the updates clearly gave us a step forward in performance – we had strong pace throughout the race.
“Credits to the whole team, both at the factory and trackside, for the hard work on the upgrades.”
With this upgrade package delivering improved performance for Sauber, just how high can they climb in the midfield?
What can we expect from Ferrari’s latest upgrade package?
Speaking of Binotto, his former team is hoping an upgrade of their own can work similar magic.
Ferrari brought an upgrade package to the Austrian Grand Prix, which included changes to all four components of the floor (fences, edges, central body, and diffuser). That helped deliver a P3 and a P4 for the team at Red Bull Ring, followed by a second consecutive P4 for Lewis Hamilton at the British Grand Prix.
However, another upgrade package is on its way. While reports vary — some outlets describe this as a “big” package while others have downplayed the breadth of the upgrade — the team is expected to bring an upgraded suspension to the Belgian Grand Prix.
Ferrari put that upgrade through the paces during a filming day, and the hope is that the upgraded suspension will make the SF-25 less sensitive to ride height.
Both Hamilton and teammate Charles Leclerc were disqualified after the Chinese Grand Prix, as Leclerc’s SF-25 was found to be underweight and Hamilton’s was found to have excessive plank wear. Since then, Ferrari has been forced to raise the car’s ride height, which came at the expense of downforce.
But if this upgrade works in concert with the upgrade floor package, Ferrari could close the gap to McLaren even more starting this weekend.
An uncertain present, and future, at Red Bull
Red Bull’s first race as an F1 team came at the 2005 Australian Grand Prix. Since then, they have notched eight Drivers’ Championships, six Constructors’ titles, 124 race wins, and 287 podiums.
But for the first time this week, they will have a new Team Principal at the helm.
Christian Horner is out and Laurent Mekies is in, as the Visa Cash App Racing Bulls team boss earned a promotion to the senior team in the wake of Horner’s sacking.
How Mekies will fare in his first race in the “big chair” is certainly one question, but it is not the only one facing Red Bull at the moment. Will they get better production from Yuki Tsunoda, who has scored just seven points in the ten races with the senior team? Will they unlock more improvement from the RB21, which has been inconsistent at best this season?
And of course, there is the big one.
Will anything that happens over the next few weekends, starting in Spa, help to prevent Max Verstappen from deciding to break from his contract with Red Bull and leave for Mercedes next season?
Needless to say, there is a lot happening at Red Bull right now, and a pivotal few weeks begin for them at the Belgian Grand Prix.
F1 Sprint weekend
This weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix marks the return of the F1 Sprint race format.
Teams will have just one hour of practice time on Friday ahead of qualifying for the F1 Sprint race, which takes place on Saturday. Then, following those 19 laps, the drivers and teams will reset for Grand Prix qualifying, as the grid for Sunday’s main event is set during that Saturday afternoon session.
This means that the teams and drivers will have just one hour of practice time before the laps count for real.
The last F1 Sprint race this season came back at the Miami Grand Prix. Mercedes phenom Kimi Antonelli captured the first pole position of his F1 career at that Sprint race, which was won on Saturday by Lando Norris.
Spa has hosted the F1 Sprint race format once before, coming during the 2023 season. Max Verstappen won both the F1 Sprint and the Grand Prix itself that weekend.
The future of the Belgian Grand Prix
At the beginning of the calendar year, F1 announced a contract extension for the Belgian Grand Prix, which will keep the race on the calendar through the 2031 season.
However, the race is not on the schedule in each of the upcoming seasons. While the Belgian Grand Prix will be held in 2026 and 2027, it will then take a year off before returning in 2029. There will be another year with the race removed from the calendar, before coming back for 2031.
This move is part of a shift towards a rotational schedule for the sport, perhaps starting with the European portion of the calendar. Speaking on a call with investors late last year, F1 President and CEO Stefano Domenicali addressed that option.
“We have some news to share very, very soon with regard to the possibility in the mid-term to have some rotational European Grand Prix and some other new options coming later,” Domenicali said on a Liberty Media investors call in November of last year.
“This is something that, of course, we will clarify in the due course. It is true that we have a large demand of new possible venues that want to come in and our choice will always be balanced between the right economical benefits that we can have as a system and also to leverage the growth on the market that we can see potential that will be beneficial for us to grow even further our business.”