Belgium Sprint:Max Wins, Oscar P2

Max Verstappen wins the rain soaked Belgium Sprint. The star however was Oscar Piastri who held on to P2. Gasly got a surprise P3 for the Alpine team.

Max stays ahead in Belgium

The Sprint start was delayed due to the rains. Even before that the Sprint Quali was delayed. Sprint started almost an hour later than scheduled. It was to be a rolling start, that too after 4 formation laps under the safety car. So the total racing laps were reduced from 15 to 11. The race started on Wet tires as per the FIA mandate. However half of the grid went for a pit-stop immediately as soon as the started to be on Inters, including P2 Oscar. Max then pitted in the second lap and thus lost a position to Oscar. Rookie Oscar lead the race for the first time in his brief F1 career. However it only last for a couple of laps before Max overtook him. There was no looking back from that point onwards and Max won the race comfortably.

The other Red Bull driver Sergio Perez had another horrible race. Starting from P8 Checo was looking to move up the grid quickly as he has the fastest car under him. However Hamilton’s car touched him as they were fighting which caused damage enough for Red Bull to retire his car. He would be looking forward to the full race where he will be starting from the front row.

Oscar shines in rain soaked Belgium

Oscar Piastri has to be the star of the race. The rookie started from P2 and held on to his nerves as the was josling with the World Champion Max Verstappen. He calmly led the race before being overtaken by Max but then held on to P2 position comfortably. Oscar will be starting P5 in the full race and would be looking to move up the places. His team-mate Lando did a decent job, starting from P5 and finishing P6, behind the two Ferrari.

Gasly hold on to P3 in his Alpine

It was not a great weekend from Alpine with the news coming out that Team Principal Otmar and the Sporting Director leaving the team after the end of the Belgium race. Gasly however did wonders to keep the team morale high. Starting from P6 in the Sprint race, he switched to Inters at the right time, which put him in P3 position. He had to fight hard to fend off Hamilton had retain his P3 position. Thanks to the short format he was able to hold on to the final podium finish. Gasly dedicated this medal to dear friend Antione who passed away in a crash here in 2021.

The two Ferraris managed to do a decent job to finish P4 and P5. Mercedes got the upgrades and would have liked to finish higher but then they did not have a good quali nor was the race any better, thanks to the 5 second penalty to Hamilton for crashing into Perez. They took the final points of P7 and P8. Birthday boy Alonso crashed as he couldn’t change direction on the wet track.

Belgium Sprint Top 8 : Max wins, Oscar P2