Autobayng News Team
After two weekends off, Formula 1 returns for one of the most popular events on the calendar – the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.
But the 13th round of the championship will also be the first ever for Red Bull without its original team principal Christian Horner.
How will the team fare at one of Max Verstappen’s strongest venues when they are in the midst of a battle with Mercedes to retain his services for 2026? Here are the talking points for the Belgian Grand Prix.
Horner no more
This weekend, for the first time in their 21-season, 406-grands prix history, Red Bull Racing will compete in Formula 1 under the leadership of someone other than Christian Horner.
Just days after the British Grand Prix – a week after a non-scoring performance at their home round at the Red Bull Ring – the team announced that former Racing Bulls team principal Laurent Mekies would take charge of Red Bull’s senior team with immediate effect, with Horner relieved of his duties. The move brought a sudden end to the longest tenure of any team principal in the paddock, one of the most successful runs in the sport’s history with eight drivers’ world titles, six constructors’ titles, 124 grand prix victories and a combined 287 podium finishes.
Mekies arrives at a team that describing as being ‘lost at sea’ would be generous. Despite world champion Max Verstappen winning twice in the RB21 this season at Suzuka and Imola, Red Bull have been mired in mediocrity by their high standards over the first half of 2025. Verstappen has accounted for 165 of the team’s 172 championship points this season as first Liam Lawson, then Yuki Tsunoda have appeared utterly incapable of extracting performance out of a car that Verstappen himself has consistently complained about.
Last time out in Silverstone, Red Bull suffered their worst result of the season so far. Despite Verstappen taking pole in stunning fashion with a low-downforce set-up, a spin just before a Safety Car restart took him out of contention for the victory and saw him finish in fifth, while team mate Tsunoda finished as the last car running after another dismal weekend.
Spa-Francorchamps has traditionally been one of the strongest venues of the season for Verstappen. But with a car that has such obvious problems as the RB21, it’s likely to be a difficult first weekend on the pit wall for the team’s new principal.
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Spa sprint round
For the third time this season, the teams will face a sprint round this weekend.
It will be the second time that the format has been used at the popular Spa-Francorchamps circuit, following a first sprint round held there in 2023. Although 12 rounds have already been completed this season, Saturday’s sprint race is technically the mid-point of the championship – the 15th of the 30 ‘races’ of this season.
As there is an eight point gap at the top of the standings between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris, should Norris win the sprint race and Piastri fail to score, then the two McLaren team mates will technically reach the midpoint of their championship battle even on points.
Piastri eager to strike back
Oscar Piastri showed a side of himself that has rarely been seen in Formula 1 last time out in Silverstone. Whereas his typical emotional range tends to sit between ‘unbothered’ and ‘nonplussed’ whether he’s winning grands prix or forced to retire on the opening lap, his anger at losing the lead of the British Grand Prix due to a penalty for his dangerous driving ahead of the final Safety Car restart was clear and obvious.
Aside from simply losing a victory, Piastri’s disgust at what he saw as an unjust action from the stewards was compounded by team mate and championship rival Lando Norris eroding his lead in the championship down to just eight points – when the gap could have been as large as 22 had he beaten Norris to the top step of the podium. With the two McLaren drivers sharing nine wins between them over the first 12 rounds of the season, Piastri knows that dropping any points unnecessarily could come back to haunt him at the end of the season.
Although he retains the lead of the championship, Piastri has not won a grand prix for three rounds – his longest span without a victory of the season. While that is hardly a damning statistic, Piastri knows that McLaren’s rivals are likely to give up on their efforts to reel them in and turn attentions to 2026, which means he will likely be locked in a straight fight with Norris for this year’s title. And so victory becomes the clear objective for each and every race weekend.
Spa-Francorchamps may be Norris’ second home grand prix of the season, but it has not been his best circuit in terms of results, with only one top five finish in six Belgian Grand Prix starts, achieved last year. Piastri, on the other hand, scored a podium here last year with a second place finish behind Lewis Hamilton after gaining one place from George Russell’s disqualification. Which of the two team mates will come out of this weekend with the largest points haul?
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Restarts under the microscope
For the second time in three rounds, there was a controversial incident at a Safety Car restart last time out at Silverstone. Coincidentally, both involved Verstappen briefly moving ahead of the leader.
In Canada, Verstappen briefly jumped in front of race leader Russell during the race-ending Safety Car period, leading to a post-race protest by Red Bull who claimed he deliberately attempted to bait their driver into a penalty. Then in Silverstone, Piastri’s sudden deceleration at the head of the field on the Hangar Straight caught out Verstappen on the wet surface and created a concertina effect behind.
The inevitable consequence of this is that the leader’s conduct during Safety Car restarts are going to be under more scrutiny than ever before, especially on a sprint weekend with multiple races. The Spa circuit naturally lends itself more favourably to the leader due to the final chicane providing a natural pinch point that spreads the field out coming onto the pit straight, so the leader should not be tempted to try anything too aggressive during any restarts this weekend. But especially if it’s another wet race, any driver dictating the pace out front will need to be careful not to draw the attention of the stewards.
Ferrari debuts new suspension
The first half of the 2025 season was not what Ferrari, its drivers or its fans hoped for. In 202, the Scuderia had two grand prix victories at the halfway point but this time they have only a single sprint race win courtesy of Lewis Hamilton in China.
Although Ferrari hold second in the championship as they also did this time last year, they have less than half the points of runaway leaders McLaren. The closest they have come to winning a grand prix was when Charles Leclerc hounded Lando Norris for the win in Monaco. But while the team may need to look ahead to next year to potentially challenge for the titles, they are not yet giving up on 2025.
Following the British Grand Prix, Ferrari took advantage of one of their available filming days to trial revised rear suspension on their SF25 at their test track at Fiorano. They are expected to introduce it on their cars at Spa this weekend.
On a circuit that both Hamilton and Leclerc have enjoyed success at before, both drivers will welcome any upgrade that will give them more stability and allow them to be more aggressive out on the track. But with only an hour of practice time this weekend, they will need every lap of data they can get, especially in order to perfect their choice of ride heights at a track where controlling floor wear is a challenge.
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Sauber’s momentum
The 2025 British Grand Prix will likely not be remembered first for being the maiden home victory for Norris, but for being the race where Nico Hulkenberg finally broke F1’s most infamous active record and achieved his first career podium finish in 239 grand prix starts.
But while Hulkenberg’s best ever F1 result was down to excellent decision making in changeable conditions and taking advantage of mistakes from others ahead, it was also the fourth consecutive points finish for Sauber following a run of seven straight rounds without a top ten finish. The 15 points Hulkenberg scored saw Sauber leap from ninth in the constructors’ championship to sixth, behind Williams.
Sauber appear to be gaining critical momentum at just the right time ahead of their transformation into Audi next season. Will they be able to keep that form going into one of the fastest circuits of the season?
Mind the gap
F1’s official tyre supplier Pirelli has made a significant change to its choice of rubber for this weekend compared to last year. Teams will have the hardest available compound – the C1 – plus the C3 and C4.
Pirelli hopes the non-consecutive tyre selection will provoke some interesting strategies not only for the grand prix, but potentially also the sprint race. Much will depend on how well the hardest tyre performs on this demanding track.
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Are you going to the Belgian Grand Prix?
If you’re heading to Belgium for this weekend’s race, we want to hear from you:
Who do you think will be the team to beat in the Belgian Grand Prix? Have your say below.
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