“Inside Norris’ mind games: How he outsmarted Oscar Piastri and dominated the tense Belgian GP qualifying showdown”
Oscar Piastri was beaten to Belgian Grand Prix pole by McLaren team-mate and F1 title rival Lando Norris who wants to further narrow the gap between them in the championship
Lando Norris starts on pole at Spa-Francorchamps(Image: Formula 1 via Getty Images)
Lando Norris is eyeing back-to-back ‘home’ race wins on Sunday after the perfect qualifying follow-up to his British Grand Prix triumph. The Brit’s first career win at Silverstone last time out saw him celebrate wildly with his family.
And he hopes to do so again in the homeland of his mother, Cisca, who watched on with glee as her half-Belgian son, 25, took pole position in the Ardennes Forest. Norris was more than half-a-second slower in Sprint qualifying than team-mate and title rival Oscar Piastri on Friday but got the better of the Aussie on Saturday for the one that really mattered.
“I did not have to change much, I just had to drive a little bit better and that was it,” he reflected. “I just drove a tiny bit better and I just had a bit of a slipstream. [On Friday] I did not have a slipstream and it cost me three-and-a-half tenths, so it makes a big difference.”
Norris had started and finished third in that Sprint race earlier in the day, and so knows full well that pole isn’t always the best place to begin at Spa-Francorchamps. The long flat-out section after the first corner gives a huge slipstream, as Piastri found out when Max Verstappen stole the lead on lap one.
The Dutchman had enough pace in his Red Bull to keep the McLarens behind over the 15-lap dash. But at 44 laps the Grand Prix is nearly three-times longer and Norris refuses to believe that starting at the front is a disadvantage.
He said: “I would be stupid and there is no point in me being here if I did not think that I could win. I am here to win and, whatever the conditions are, that is my target.”
Piastri, nine points ahead in the title race, felt he should have made it two poles in the same weekend but “a pretty big mistake” cost him. He said: “I felt like the potential was there and it is always frustrating when you feel like you can do it and you don’t. That is how it goes sometimes, unfortunately.
“I feel like I have done a good job, just unfortunately not when it mattered today. But I feel like the pace has been really strong all weekend, so I am confident for tomorrow.”
Verstappen’s Sprint win for Red Bull saw life under new boss Laurent Mekies get off to the perfect start. He admitted he had to do “15 qualifying laps” to keep the quicker McLarens behind and “drove over the limit” for much of the race. And from fourth on the grid today he is not confident he can repeat the trick, no matter what the weather does.
Verstappen said: “Overall, it’s not been a very good qualifying. I think it will be tough. If it’s wet then you can’t see anything, so you can’t do anything on lap one. I hope we can fight back to the podium, but we need to be realistic and work on our own balance.”
