Welcome back to our coverage of Sprint Saturday at the Belgian Grand Prix. Max Verstappen took pole by the narrowest of margins in the Sprint Shootout earlier today, denying Oscar Piastri a maiden Sprint pole.
With more rain still a possibility at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, was plenty of excitement ahead of this afternoon’s event. The original Sprint start time of 3:30pm was pushed back to 4:05pm following the rain delay we had for the Shootout earlier.
This is the third Sprint weekend of the 2023, but just in case you have forgotten this is how the shorter race operates this season.
The race is 100km long – amounting to 15 laps around Spa-Francorchamps
The Sprint does not set the grid for Sunday’s race
The top eight positions score points – the winner will collect 8 points, second place will score 7 points and this continues descending down to eighth (1 point).
Pit stops are not mandatory and drivers are free to run whatever tyre they wish to.
It was dry with 20 minutes before the start of the Sprint race, but weather radars were suggesting rain could arrive in 10 minutes’ time while Sky Sport reported there was potentially some heavier rain that could arrive a few minutes into the Sprint. With just a few moments until lights out, the FIA message board was telling us that there was a 100 per cent risk of rain for the Sprint. For the sake of entertainment, was probably be better for the race were to get under way in the dry on slick tyres, before forcing some pit stops to shake things up. The rain hadn’t reached the grid yet, but elsewhere on the 7km circuit umbrellas were going up.
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A few moments later, the FIA confirmed the start of the Sprint was once again delayed as the rain had started bucketing down on the grid. There was initially no timeframe given for how long the delay would be.
Race Control announced the formation lap will start at 4.12pm, but a drain was very much struggling to clear water after that deluge, so race control further delayed the start after that earlier formation lap time. We had vehicles out on the track clearing away the standing water, and at this stage the sun was doing its best to help out!
Carlos Sainz told Ferrari he wanted to immediately box for intermediate tyres once the Safety Car pulled into the pits. We were set for quite the traffic jam in the pit lane if others followed suits. The formation lap was under way and all the drivers set off behind the Safety Car on the full wet tyres. We had to have two full laps under green flag conditions for points to be handed out to the top eight finishers.
Second formation lap: Max Verstappen crossed the line and we were continuing behind the Safety Car. It was too wet for a standing start today, but we were expecting a flurry of cars to come in for inters when they could. Max Verstappen was told race control planed for four laps behind the Safety Car. It was then a rolling start procedure.
The FIA then confirmed there would be a fifth lap behind the Safety Car to clear more water. So Sprint was just 11 laps.
Pole-sitter Max Verstappen powered across the line on a rolling start as multiple cars went into the pits behind him. Norris, Leclerc, Ocon and Russell were among those staying out with Verstappen. Oscar Piastri pitted from P2 and McLaren did excellent work to get him out ahead of the rest of the field. Gasl;y, Perez, Hamilton, Sainz, Ricciardo, Stroll, Albon, Bottas and Hulkenberg all came in.
Max Verstappen did come in at the end of lap one and was almost held up by Lando Norris Mclaren. And Oscar Piastri led the Sprint by 1.5s as a result of pitting first. All 10 drivers who stayed out on the first lap stopped on the second lap. Verstappen, Leclerc, Norris, Ocon, Russell, Sargeant, Alonso, Tsunoda, Magnussen and Zhou were all on inters.
Unfortunately both Ferrari drivers lost positions after the pit stop changes, as they were both held up in the pits: Carlos Sainz was running in P6, ahead of his Maranello teammate Charles Leclerc. On lap 4, Fernando Alonso crashed out at Pouhon and the Safety Car was deployed. He was closing up to Nico Hulkenberg’s Haas and got too much on the red and yellow kerbing and spun off into the gravel. It has not been a good 42nd birthday for the former Ferrari man at all today after his early Sprint Shootout exit too.
Oscar Piastri couldn’t hold on much longer though. Max Verstappen was on the tail of the McLaren up the hill through Eau Rouge and on the exit of Raidillon the Red Bull reclaimed the lead. And he swiftly opened up a second lead. Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez made contact as they went wheel to wheel. There was damage on one of their cars and the Mexican was falling back after that contact, with Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc taking advantage to gain a position.
Sergio Perez said he had no rear grip and he went off at Stavelot into the gravel and dropped right down the order. The Mexican fell all the way down to P16. Lewis Hamilton got a five-second time penalty for contact with Sergio Perez, which was great news for Carlos Sainz and Charles Leclerc, who were running behind the Mercedes man. No late mistakes for the Maranello drivers and Carlos Sainz ended the Sprint race in fourth place, with Charles Leclerc in P5, for a total of nine points.
While the rest of the field struggled on their tyres, Max Verstappen eased home to win the 11-lap race by almost 6.5 seconds. Oscar Piastri and Pierre Gasly completed the podium.
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