F1 news: How does Oscar Piastri respond at the F1 Belgian Grand Prix?

Formula 1 reached the point halfway through the 2025 campaign.

While two racing weekends remain until the summer closure of August, 12 races are in the mirror, and 12 others remain. This week’s Belgian Grand Prix is launching a F1 double head, which will take the historic Spa-Francorchamps this week at Hungarring next week at the Hungarian Grand Prix.

Then the electric units are silent and the driver’s silly season will launch at full speed.

Until then, we have two races and many scenarios to reach. Here are the main scenarios before the Belgian Grand Prix.

How will Oscar Piastri bounce from Silverstone?

In the wake of the Canadian Grand Prix, which saw the first highly anticipated track confrontation between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, the big question was how Norris would react. The battle between McLaren’s teammates left Norris without a front wing, out of the race, and moving further behind Piastri in the fight for the title.

How did Norris react? By winning the next two races, the Austrian Grand Prix and then the British Grand Prix. But now, the emphasis is on how Piastri will react, after the ten second penalty he received while Silverstone opened the door to Norris to win his home race, and almost eight Piastri dots at the top of the table.

In an article on the official F1 website, several Legends of the Sport have addressed the 2025 season so far, and in the discussion on the struggle for the title between the pair McLaren, the former winner of the title Jacques Villeneuve underlined this question as it is “pending” to see.

“With Piastri, it was the first time that he obtained a penalty in Silverstone, and that saw a little change of attitude. When you fight for the championship, it really changes your approach,” said Villeneuve. “We saw Norris being at the top of the championship, being behind, retaluating, so we have seen a little everything that Norris is. We have not seen everything Piastri is and how he reacts in certain situations.

“Is it going to make it better or worse?” This is what I expect to see. “

We are going to start get this answer this weekend.

How high can Sauber climb in the midfield?

Clive Rose / Getty Images photo

Do you join Norris and Piastri on the podium in Silverstone?

No one other than Nico Hülkenberg, who for the first time in his F1 career, and in his 239th departure, finally finished in the Top three.

The third place of Hülkenberg in the British Grand Prix propelled Sauber in the standings, while the team is now sixth in the manufacturers’ championship table. But how high can they climb?

Hülkenberg thinks they are contenders in the “serious” midfielder now.

“While we have made very good improvements from Barcelona, today [at Silverstone] is obviously circumstantial, and the conditions made this race and this result possible, “said the veteran driver at the FIA press conference after the British Grand Prix.

“But I think that in the fight in the midfield, we have definitely taken momentum, and we are a serious competitor there. This is where we fight, but it is always a question of maximizing each race, every weekend, and trying to do well.”

Hülkenberg’s point on Barcelona should not be ignored. Sauber brought a completely new floor to the Spanish Grand Prix, and since then they have been at the points at each of the four races. Hülkenberg finished fifth in Barcelona, punctuated by a surpassing of Lewis Hamilton on the penultimate round of the race, then eighth at the Canadian Grand Prix. The two pilots entered the points of the next race, while he finished the ninth and the recruit Gabriel Bortoleto finished eighth at the Austrian Grand Prix.

Then came the superb podium.

After the Spanish Grand Prix, Hülkenberg and the chief of the farm and the technical director Mattia Binotto noted that the upgrading package had released an improved pace.

“The initial conclusion is that the car seemed much better after other cars than before,” said Binotto.

“The car felt good all weekend,” said Hulkenberg. “And the updates clearly gave us a step forward in the performances – we had a strong rhythm throughout the race.

“Credit to the whole team, both to the factory and to the track, for hard work on upgrades.”

With this upgrade package offering improved performance for Sauber, how much can they climb in the midfield?

What can we expect from the last Ferrari upgrade package?

Speaking of Binotto, his old team hopes that their own upgrade can work similar magic.

Ferrari brought an upgrade package to the Austrian Grand Prix, which included modifications to the four components of the soil (fences, edges, central body and diffuser). This helped deliver a P3 and a P4 for the Red Bull Ring team, followed by a second consecutive P4 for Lewis Hamilton at the British Grand Prix.

However, another upgrade package is on the way. Although the reports vary – some points of sale describe this as a “big” package while others have minimized the extent of the upgrade – the team should bring an improved suspension to the Belgian Grand Prix.

Ferrari has upgraded this test during a day of shooting, and hope is that the improved suspension will make the SF-25 less sensitive to driving height.

Hamilton and his teammate Charles Leclerc were both disqualified after the Chinese Grand Prix, because the Leclerc SF-25 was noted in weight insufficiency and Hamilton turned out to have excessive board wear. Since then, Ferrari has been forced to raise the driving height of the car, which took place at the expense of support.

But if this upgrade works in concert with the upgrade floor package, Ferrari could fill the gap with McLaren even more from this weekend.

An uncertain present, and the future, to Red Bull

Photo by Mark Thompson / Getty Images

Red Bull’s first Red Bull race as F1 team came to the 2005 Australian Grand Prix. Since then, they have heard eight pilot championships, six manufacturers’ titles, 124 racing victories and 287 podiums.

But for the first time this week, they will have a new team director at the helm.

Christian Horner was released and that Laurent Mekies is in the boss of the Bulls of Visa Cash App Racing Bulls team obtained a promotion to the senior team following the dismissal of Horner.

How the Mekies get out of it in his first race in the “big chair” is certainly a question, but it is not the only one to face Red Bull at the moment. Will they get a better production from Yuki Tsunoda, who only scored seven points in the ten races with the senior team? Will they unlock more improvement compared to the RB21, which has been at best incoherent this season?

And of course, there is the big one.

Does something happen over the next weekends, from SPA, will help Max Verstappen from deciding to break his contract with Red Bull and leave for Mercedes next season?

Needless to say, there is a lot of things about Red Bull at the moment, and a few weeks pivots are starting for them at the Belgian Grand Prix.

F1 Sprint Weekend

The Belgian Grand Prix of this weekend marks the return of the Sprint F1 race format.

On Friday, the teams will only have an hour of training before the qualifications for the Sprint F1 race, which takes place on Saturday. Then, after these 19 laps, the drivers and the teams will reset each other for the qualifications of Grand Prix, because the grid of the main event on Sunday takes place during this session on Saturday afternoon.

This means that teams and drivers will only have an hour of practice before the towers count for real.

The latest F1 Sprint race this season has returned to Miami Grand Prix. Mercedes’ phenomenon, Kimi Antonelli, captured the first pole position of his F1 career during this sprint race, which was won on Saturday by Lando Norris.

SPA welcomed the F1 Sprint Race format once before, to come during the 2023 season. Max Verstappen won the Sprint F1 and the Grand Prix itself this weekend.

The future of the Belgian Grand Prix

Photo by James Sutton – Formula 1 / Formula 1 via Getty Images

At the start of the calendar year, F1 announced a contract extension for the Belgian Grand Prix, which will maintain the race on the calendar throughout the 2031 season.

However, the race is not on the calendar in each of the coming seasons. Although the Belgian Grand Prix will be held in 2026 and 2027, it will then take a year off before returning in 2029. There will be another year with the calendar race, before returning for 2031.

This decision is part of an evolution towards a rotation calendar for sport, perhaps starting with the European part of the calendar. Speaking on a call with investors at the end of last year, the president and chief executive officer of F1, Stefano Domenicini, addressed this option.

“We have news to share very, very soon with regard to the mid-term possibility of having the European Grand Prix in rotation and other new options to come later,” said Domenicali during a call for Liberty Media investors in November from last year.

“This is something that, of course, we will clarify in due time. It is true that we have a strong demand for new possible places that want to enter and that our choice will always be balanced between the right economic advantages that we can have as a system and also to take advantage of the market growth that we can see a potential that will be beneficial so that we are getting even further. “