Would another strategy have improved Norris’s chances of winning? Belgian GP data

Lando Norris’s hopes of winning the Belgian Grand Prix suffered a blow when he lost the lead to his team mate moments after the race started.

But could he have played a stronger hand tactically in his efforts to get back on terms with his team mate?

The race began on a wet but drying track and every driver who scored points made only a single pit stop to switch to slick tyres. Lewis Hamilton was the first to risk slicks and cashed in on his gamble, leaping six places to seventh.

Three drivers followed Hamilton in immediately after his lap 11 pit stop. The next time around, almost every other driver came in, beginning with the race leader.

Just four drivers waited longer: Norris, who did not want to waste time waiting behind Piastri; Yuki Tsunoda, who was called in too late; Esteban Ocon, who admitted afterwards the call was a mistake; and Isack Hadjar, who was nursing a car problem.

Norris was within two seconds off Piastri on lap 12, so he would have lost a couple of seconds waiting behind his team mate had he accompanied him into the pits. He would have also forfeited the opportunity to profit from a slow pit stop for Piastri had one occured.

However Norris likely lost far more time doing another lap on his worn intermediates on the drying track than he would have by following Piastri in. Piastri was 2.4 seconds faster through the middle sector alone on his first lap out of the pits as Norris headed in.

Norris lost a little more time than Piastri making his pit stop due to a slow front-left tyre change. However his total pit stop time was only half a second slower. The gap between them ballooned from 1.9 seconds to 9.1 seconds through Norris’s pit stop, so Norris would surely have lost much less time by ‘stacking’ behind his team mate in the pits.

That time loss was probably amplified by the fact Norris took the hard tyres while Piastri, like everyone else, opted for mediums. This gave Norris a chance to close on Piastri as the mediums degraded late in the race. Sure enough, he got within three seconds of the leader before making a mistake at La Source on the penultimate lap.

Had Norris followed Piastri into the pits and taken a set of hards, he would likely have lost less time and been in a better place to attack him. However the mistakes Norris made during his pursuit of Piastri also cost him, as the graphs below make clear on laps 26, 34 and 43.

Of course, Norris could have been in an even better position had he pitted on the same lap as Hamilton, i.e. before any other driver and one lap before his team mate. Whether McLaren would have allowed Norris to ‘undercut’ Piastri in this way is another matter – in dry conditions it would normally be out of the question.

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2025 Belgian Grand Prix lap chart

The positions of each driver on every lap. Click name to highlight, right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

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2025 Belgian Grand Prix race chart

The gaps between each driver on every lap compared to the leader’s average lap time. Very large gaps omitted. Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and right-click to reset. Toggle drivers using controls below:

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2025 Belgian Grand Prix lap times

All the lap times by the drivers (in seconds, very slow laps excluded). Scroll to zoom, drag to pan and toggle drivers using the control below:

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2025 Belgian Grand Prix fastest laps

Each driver’s fastest lap:

2025 Belgian Grand Prix tyre strategies

The tyre strategies for each driver:

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2025 Belgian Grand Prix pit stop times

How long each driver’s pit stops took:

2025 Belgian Grand Prix

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