Formula 1 News: Piastri tops Belgian GP Practice 1 in superior McLaren

No. 81 McLaren driver Oscar Piastri (pictured) turned a lap of 1m42.022s to top the only practice session this weekend ahead of the Belgian GP Sprint qualifying coming up next at Spa Francorchamps.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Max Verstappen, who continues to carry the Red Bull RB21 dog on his back, went 2nd quick, 0.404s behind Piastri.  More telling what a dog the RB21 is, his teammate Yuki Tsunoda was a massive 2.47s behind Piastri and 2-seconds slower than Verstappen.

Lando Norris, the winner the last two races out, was third, 0.504s behind McLaren teammate Piastri

George Russell, sandbagging on harder tires on his Mercedes, was 4th fastest, 0.576s behind Piastri.

Charles Leclerc was the faster of the two Ferrari drivers, 0.906s behind Piastri.

Plenty of teams will be going into Sprint Qualifying later on having not run the mediums yet, despite having to use that tire in SQ1 and SQ2.

Red Bull, Haas, Racing Bulls and Mercedes have run the C3 rubber – will that give them an advantage later on, or leave them a set of mediums short come Sunday?

Lance Stroll lost some time at the start of that session after needing a seat change. But Carlos Sainz Jr. lost even more with a fuel systems issue – which he’ll hope doesn’t rear its head again this weekend.

That leaves the Spaniard up against it, although at least this is a track he knows well.

Sprint Qualifying begins at 10:30am ET.

2025 Belgian GP Practice Results