Reports are that Oscar Piastri set a new track record in SQ3 at Spa, but most fans in the United States had no visual evidence of that happening. See, with about 4 minutes to go in the final qualifying session for the sprint race, ESPN went to commercial. Those who were watching via the stream didn’t get to see the finish. Those watching live on TV got to watch the final lap, but the commentary swapped to the Spanish language stream.
The big stories coming out of spring qualifying though were the spin from Lewis Hamilton that saw him eliminated in SQ1, and a rough session from Kimi Antonelli that also saw him out in the first session. Once the sprint race started, Max Verstappen immediately took advantage of the low downforce wing he has on his car and jumped ahead of Piastri. Vertappen never looked back as he dominated sectors one and three, making his lead insurmountable despite the McLaren’s being faster in sector two. Ultimately, it was Vertappen on top of the podium in the country of his birth, followed by Piastri and Lando Norris.
Earlier in the day, F3 had a rather straight forward race that saw Noah Stromsted win the sprint with Ugo Ugochukwu and Charlie Wurtz also making the podium. Straight forward is never used to describe a F2 race, and Saturday was no different. Multiple incidents on the first lap brought out the first safety car, but it was the one that was brought out by Amaury Cordeel making contact and then rolling through the gravel into the barrier on lap 12 that really made it interesting. Much of the midfield boxed for soft tires during the one lap safety car, and their pace was immediately felt. That group made quick work of multiple runners still on medium tires, but Leonardo Fornaroli looked in command of the lead, but Victor Martins and Gabriele Mini were certainly at risk. That risk came to an end though when Sami Meguetounif’s car stopped on track and was unable to get it going again, making the top three Fornaroli-Martins-Mini.
After the sprint race fun, the F1 qualifying began for the featured race. With rain forecasted for Sunday and the struggles in the wet weather in Silverstone, Verstappen swapped to a rear wing that provided more downforce, which came as a bit of a surprise after the lower downforce wing is what helped lead him to victory in the sprint. Antonelli again found himself out in Q1, making it an incredibly frustrating weekend for the rookie. Meanwhile, Hamilton got himself out of Q1 on his final lap that moved him up to seventh on the timing sheet. When the broadcast got back from commercial though, that had changed. Despite there not being a great angle for it on the broadcast, the stewards determined Hamilton exceeded track limits on turn four and fell to 16th, meaning he did not get out of either Q1 on the weekend.
Once we reached Q3, the track temperature rose throughout the session leading to the track negatively evolving and few drivers improved on their final lap. This allowed Norris to hold onto pole and Piastri making it a front row lockout for McLaren. One driver who did improve on the final lap was Alex Albon who put together a fantastic final lap and jumped to fifth on the grid.
Come Sunday, the rain did arrive, so much in fact the F3 feature race never officially got started, leaving Rafael Camara 28 points clear at the top of the standings with a race weekend around Hungaroring next weekend and a trip to Monza at the start of September as the only racing left in the F3 calendar for this year. F2 did get going and was relatively straight forward race, at least for a while. Sebastian Montoya spun and stalled on lap 18, bringing out the first and only safety car in the race. Just as we thought the safety car might come in, Oliver Goethe had his engine catch fire, red flagging the race and giving Alex Dunne the win, for a bit. Ultimately Dunne was given a 10 second penalty for failing to engage the start-up procedure, making Arvid Lindblad the winner, for a short time. Lindblad was ultimately found to have issues with tire pressure and was disqualified from the race, making Roman Stanek the official winner. F2 will also be racing next weekend in Budapest, and have four more races after that with Fornaroli holding just a three point lead over Richard Verschoor and only 12 points clear of fifth place.
The F1 race went for a formation lap behind the safety car before being red flagged and postponed for quite some time. Eventually they got back on the road, but spend the first four laps behind a safety car before a rolling start. There were four cars scheduled to start from pit lane, but it was the McLaren’s up front that everyone was watching. At almost the same spot Verstappen passed Piastri on the first lap of the sprint race, Piastri got by Norris in the feature race. Despite starting in the wet before moving to dry tires not too deep into the race, there weren’t any significant incidents in the race, and McLaren dominated again, with Piastri taking the checkered flag, Norris finished second, and Charles Leclerc rounding out the podium. Piastri now has a 16 point lead in the driver’s standings over Norris while McLaren holds more than double their closest competitor, 516 points to Ferrari’s 248 (both Norris and Piastri alone have more points than Ferrari or any other team).
F1 will be back at it next weekend before the summer break that will see three consecutive weekends without racing.
The Stain Sports 