Today saw a turnaround for the main players in yesterday’s Sprint Qualifying in which Oscar Piastri set a new track record on his way to pole. Today’s Sprint race was won by Max Verstappen (Red Bull Racing), the Dutchman thus recording his 12th victory in this discipline. Behind him came the McLaren duo of Piastri and Lando Norris, in that order. But the Englishman got his revenge in qualifying, taking pole for tomorrow’s race, beating the Australian, second once again, by a whisker. There were no lap records today, as Lando’s time of 1’40”562 was 52 thousandths slower than Piastri’s from yesterday. More important is the 85 thousandths that separates the McLaren pair today.

Starting from the second row will be Charles Leclerc (1’40”900) and Verstappen, just three thousandths slower than the Ferrari driver. This was Norris’ 13th career pole, the fifth this season. For McLaren it was number 12 in the Belgian Grand Prix. It’s the first time it heads the field since 2012, when another Englishman, Jenson Button, was quickest in qualifying. Norris was presented with the Pirelli Pole Position Award by Belgium’s Thierry Neuville, the reigning FIA World Rally Champion, having secured the title at the final round last year in Japan, driving a Pirelli-shod Hyundai. To date, Neuville has taken part in 175 WRC rounds, taking 21 wins and 72 podium finishes.

THE DAY ON TRACK
For the Sprint Race, all drivers with the exception of Colapinto who went with the Softs, ran the Medium tyre. Of the Medium runners, eight used new sets while 11 ran sets used for a qualifying run. The C3 behaved as expected, with significant but not excessive degradation. On the C4, the Argentinian was able to run the medium length stint with degradation not too dissimilar to that seen on its harder sibling. For qualifying, all drivers used the Soft, again except for Colapinto, who did his first Q1 run on the Medium. In Q1, 12 drivers ran used C4s.

MARIO ISOLA - HEAD OF F1 AND CAR RACING
“A very busy Saturday as is always the case on a Sprint weekend. From the short race, we were able to gather plenty of useful information on how the Medium tyre, used by the great majority of drivers, behaved. Degradation was a factor, obviously as this track is very hard on tyres, but it definitely wasn’t dramatic, especially as there was no graining, something we had already realised in yesterday’s free practice.

“As for strategy, the first thing to take into consideration is that the forecast is for a high chance of rain. Therefore the hypothetical scenarios are many, in every sense of the word. If it’s a dry race with track temperatures significantly lower than today’s or yesterday’s, the Soft and Medium compounds will be the most competitive. As there is not that big a difference between a one-stop and a two-stop, any combination of Soft and Medium is possible. That doesn’t mean the decision to bring a very hard Hard here was a mistake: if we had kept the same trio as last year, the one-stop would have been significantly quicker. One must also bear in mind that overtaking at this track is not that easy, as could be seen in all today’s Sprint races, in F1, F2 and F3, when trains of cars were formed despite or indeed because of the DRS. This means that the start, and especially the first sector on the opening lap, should make the difference and slipstreaming could play an important role.

“If the race starts in the dry, but with the threat of rain, one can easily imagine the Medium would be the favourite compound so as to have greater flexibility in managing the moment to switch to rain tyres or to extend the first stint as much as possible."

FORMULA 2
A two-thirds Italian podium this afternoon in the Sprint Race, the win going to Leonardo Fornaroli (Invicta Racing) with Gabriele Minì (Prema Racing) third. Splitting them was Frenchman Victor Martins (ART Grand Prix). All the drivers came to the grid on Medium tyres. The two Safety Car periods had a significant impact on tyre behaviour in this short race, because during the second one on lap 12, all drivers still in the race pitted for Softs for the final six laps.

FORMULA 3
Noah Stromsted (Trident) took the victory in the Sprint Race. Having dealt with the pole sitter, Freddie Slater (Hitech TGR), the Dane dominated the short race, crossing the finish line six seconds ahead of the American Ugo Ugochuckwu (Prema Racing). Standing on the third step of the podium was Austria’s Charlie Wurz, also for Trident. As for the tyres, the drivers had to carefully manage degradation: those pushing too hard in the early stages saw a significant drop off in performance over the final four to five laps, thus creating opportunities for those who had been more cautious over the first few laps.