The 2025 Belgian Grand Prix delivered one of the most strategically complex races of the Formula 1 season. With changing conditions, delayed starts, and tight margins between pit calls, execution mattered more than outright speed. McLaren extended its dominance with another one-two, while others fumbled key decisions.
Spa rewarded calm heads and punished hesitation. Several teams brought upgrades, but only a few made them count. Some veterans reminded the grid why they are still a threat. Others showed just how brutal the midfield can be when things go wrong. From bold tire gambles to quiet disasters, here are the winners and losers from a chaotic weekend at Spa-Francorchamps.
Winner: Oscar Piastri (McLaren)
Oscar Piastri’s Belgian GP win was all about timing and nerve. He jumped into the lead early, then pitted on Lap 12 for mediums while Norris stayed out a lap longer for hards. That one-lap swing, combined with a quicker stop, gave Piastri clean air and a crucial nine-second buffer. Norris clawed it down to three seconds late on but couldn’t close.
The mediums weren’t the safe call, but Piastri made them work, managing drop-off perfectly in the final laps. Norris, by contrast, admitted McLaren may have waited too long. At Spa, track position mattered more than tire life, and Piastri proved it by holding firm under pressure and converting a bold call into his sixth win of the season.
Loser: Max Verstappen (Red Bull)
At a venue often seen as his second home Grand Prix, Verstappen won the sprint, but the main race was a setback. Red Bull went low-downforce, expecting rain, but race control delayed the start 80 minutes, leaving him stuck in a car optimized for wet weather and short on top speed on a drying track. He finished fourth, over 21 seconds behind Piastri, showing flashes of pace but no real grip in the transition phase.
Post-race, Verstappen called the delay “overly cautious,” while others defended race control for safety reasons. McLaren out-executed Red Bull in strategy and setup, and Spa underlined that precision and adaptability are now McLaren’s edge.
Winner: Lando Norris (McLaren)
Norris looked sharp from the start—on pace in qualifying and locked in behind Piastri early on. But the pit strategy left him boxed out. McLaren could’ve double-stacked, but only if Norris held the pack back to buy Piastri time, a move that risked chaos in a drying field. Pitting on the same lap would’ve meant stopping on the pit straight, blocking others, and drawing a penalty.
So Norris waited a lap, took on hards, and lost time. The tires were slow to switch on, but once they did, he came alive, carving a nine-second gap down to three. Then came the lockup at La Source. Just a twitch, but it broke the rhythm. He needed three laps to claw back what he lost. Quick all day, just not clean enough when it mattered.
Loser: Aston Martin (Fernando Alonso & Lance Stroll)
Aston Martin endured one of its worst weekends of the season. Despite bringing a new front wing to Spa, the car lacked pace throughout. Alonso and Stroll qualified 19th and 20th, the lowest for any team, exposing the AMR25’s issues with straight-line speed and overall grip. Both drivers started from the pit lane and finished outside the points, with Stroll in 14th and Alonso in 17th.
The car struggled under both wet and dry conditions, and Alonso later described the race as “very boring.” With McLaren, Mercedes, and even RB showing improved form, Aston Martin now finds itself under pressure to respond quickly. Without meaningful upgrades soon, the team risks losing touch in the Constructors’ fight and could fall behind in the increasingly competitive midfield.
Winner: Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)
Leclerc didn’t have the outright pace to challenge the McLarens, but he ran a near-flawless race in brutal conditions. He held position off the restart, stayed clear of trouble, and nailed the timing on his switch to slicks—going for hards one lap before Verstappen. The undercut worked, putting him comfortably into third while Red Bull fumbled their rhythm. From there, it was pure management.
The Ferrari wasn’t the fastest car, but Leclerc stayed consistent, managed the tire deg, and never put a wheel wrong. While others chased grip or made errors, he kept it tidy and banked solid points for the team. It wasn’t spectacular, but it was smart—exactly the kind of drive Ferrari needed to stay in the fight for second in the championship. Calm, calculated, and completely in control.
Loser: Andrea Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)
This was a weekend to forget for the Mercedes rookie. Antonelli spun out in Sprint Qualifying 1 and was eliminated early, then qualified last for Sunday’s Grand Prix. He started from the pit lane and finished 16th, well behind teammate Lewis Hamilton, who came home seventh. In changing conditions, Antonelli struggled to find confidence or pace.
There were no major mistakes during the race, but he lacked the aggression and racecraft needed to make progress. The gap to Hamilton was over 40 seconds at the finish, raising concerns inside and outside the team. Former world champion Nico Rosberg suggested that Mercedes may need to reevaluate if this trend continues. Antonelli’s learning curve remains steep, and Spa exposed just how demanding the Formula 1 midfield really is.
Winner: Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)
Hamilton’s weekend looked like a write-off. Off the pace in sprint qualifying, out of the points in the sprint, and a poor showing in GP qualifying left him starting from the pit lane. But when the lights finally went out, he came alive. On a wet track with zero margin for error, Hamilton picked off 11 cars in the opening phase.
Ferrari timed his switch to mediums perfectly, making him the first to gamble on slicks and giving him clean air to settle into rhythm. Even while being told to lift and coast—not for fuel, but to protect the car’s ride height and plank wear—he kept Albon on edge, always checking his mirrors for the red car closing in. It wasn’t flashy, but it was fierce. P7 from the pit lane. Still fighting. Still sharp.
Loser: FIA / Race Control
The race at Spa was delayed by over 90 minutes due to heavy rain, reigniting criticism of FIA decision-making in wet conditions. Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton questioned the length of the delay, saying conditions were manageable earlier and that the momentum was lost. On the other hand, drivers like Charles Leclerc and George Russell defended the caution, pointing to Spa’s tragic past and the importance of safety.
While the eventual running was clean, fans were left waiting with limited information. Broadcasters struggled to fill airtime, and team strategies were left uncertain. The incident reignited long-standing concerns about whether the FIA’s wet-weather protocols are too cautious for today’s cars. Once again, race control ended up influencing the weekend’s spectacle more than anything that happened on track.
Winner: McLaren (Constructors)
Six one-twos in a single season says it all. McLaren has built a car that delivers across every condition, every compound, and every strategy window. At Spa, they did not just win. They controlled every phase of the race. Piastri and Norris had the freedom to race while never stepping on each other’s toes, a sign of both trust and a team operating at its peak.
The pit wall nailed every call, from timing the switch to slicks to managing track position without panic. While rivals scrambled through the wet-dry shuffle, McLaren stayed composed and efficient. Every element of their weekend execution worked in harmony, from the garage to the drivers. With a 268-point lead over Ferrari in the Constructors’ standings, they are not just leading the championship. They are setting the standard for everyone else to follow.