Norris beats Piastri to Belgium GP pole position
Lando Norris turned the tables and secured pole position for tomorrow's Belgian Grand Prix. After starting and finishing third in this morning's Sprint, Norris is eyeing a bigger role in Sunday's event. Oscar Piastri is set to start from third, ahead of Verstappen.
Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix started with some antics in the pitlane with a minor incident between Alonso and Bearman for an unsafe release as they wanted to get into position even before the track opened. A similar problem occured with Hulkenberg and Stroll with Hulkenberg wanting to slot into the queue and Stroll simply driving over the Sauber front wing, requiring Hulkenberg to reverse and his team to fit a new front wing. Not avoiding any drama, Stroll reported "he just drove into me".
Once on track the Williams duo returned to the pits after an out lap. It was eventually Norris and Piastri who set the first times, followed by the Mercedes and Red Bull Racing cars. After Verstappen slotted in between the McLarens, Lawson emerged on top of the timing sheet. Albon and Bearman were slightly slower but still faster than Piastri with Sainz and then Leclerc going fastest on fresh softs. Hamilton crossed the line half a minute later and ended up 5th, three tenths away of his teammate.
Norris and Piastri both improved on their earlier times about 4 minutes from the end to move back to the top of the timing sheet. Verstappen was on a similar run strategy and went third fastest to ensure a place in Q1.
Russell also got safe one minute from the end, leaving Hamilton, Antonelli, the Aston Martins and Alpines in danger. Gasly was the first to improve, up to 11th, then Hamilton went to 7th but his laptime was deleted moments later for being a bit too optimistic through the Raidillon. Upon getting the news, Hamilton shook his head in disappointment and parked at the pit entry to compose himself.
This moved Bortoleto up into 15th and therefore through into Q2. Hamilton, Antonelli, Colapinto, Alonso, Stroll on the other hand were out.
Q2 was a very troublefree session with everybody able to do an initial lap without really suffering traffic or issues. Verstappen opened proceedings but it was Piastri who had the fastest time on the board in a quiet moment about 5 minutes ahead of the end of the session. After those first laps, Hulkenberg, Bortoleto, Gasly and Sainz were in danger. Bearman as well as he had returned to the pits before setting a time after overcooking Pouhon and going off track.
A little more than 4 minutes from the end of the session another queue formed at the exit of the pitlane as everybody was preparing to go out for another attempt.
Bortoleto posted a considerable improvement and went 7th fastest. Lawson and Hadjar did better still while Sainz was unable to do much. The Haas drivers moved up to 11th and 12th but both were obviously out.
The final part of qualifying was always set to end up to be a shootout between Verstappen and the McLaren duo, and this time it was Lando Norris who drew the longest straw, outpacing his rivals and taking a deserved pole position for the race. Oscar Piastri was second fastest but might be happy with it, aiming to do what Verstappen did to him in the sprint.
