Oscar Piastri Beats Norris to Win Belgian F1 Grand Prix 2025, Verstappen Finishes 4th

Oscar Piastri cruised to his sixth victory of the 2025 Formula One season in the Belgian Grand Prix at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday.

Lando Norris shaved some time from his deficit on Piastri down the final stretch, getting it inside four seconds before Piastri regained a healthy buffer with two laps to go. It was ultimately a straightforward win for the Australian. He and his team managed the race to perfection.

McLaren had a lot to celebrate as a constructor's title is all but inevitable.

Sunday's start was delayed by an hour thanks to heavy rainfall. Track officials called drivers back to pit road after deeming the visibility to be too low.

Once the green flag dropped and the safety car exited the track, it didn't take long for the action to begin. Piastri passed his McLaren teammate before they even completed a full lap.

Max Verstappen also unsuccessfully tried to engineer a path around Charles Leclerc in third place. Verstappen and Leclerc ultimately finished as they started, with the defending F1 champion settling for fourth.

The odds of Verstappen extending his title streak to five years are getting increasingly low.

By starting from pit lane, Lewis Hamilton knew the wait for his first win with Ferrari would have to wait at least another week. But he almost immediately started moving up the board.

Hamilton, who wound up in seventh, was pound-for-pound one of the best drivers on the day given how much of a hole he had to work himself out of. That might make his qualifying run all the more frustrating for he and his team in retrospect.

Maybe Ferrari is at least beginning to find what can be a winning formula for the seven-time champion.

The Hungarian Grand Prix at Hungaroring is the next stop on the F1 calendar. Practices start Friday prior to Saturday's qualifying.

Verstappen collected back-to-back checkered flags in 2022 and 2023 before Piastri outlasted Norris in last year's race. Perhaps the 24-year-old will widen his lead in the driver's standings this time next week.