{"id":278763,"date":"2025-04-10T12:22:24","date_gmt":"2025-04-10T12:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/10\/f1-leader-max-verstappen-wins-rain-hit-belgian-gp-sprint-race-oscar-piastri-is-second\/"},"modified":"2025-04-10T12:22:24","modified_gmt":"2025-04-10T12:22:24","slug":"f1-leader-max-verstappen-wins-rain-hit-belgian-gp-sprint-race-oscar-piastri-is-second","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/04\/10\/f1-leader-max-verstappen-wins-rain-hit-belgian-gp-sprint-race-oscar-piastri-is-second\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 leader Max Verstappen wins rain-hit Belgian GP sprint race, Oscar Piastri is second"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i3.wp.com\/data.indianexpress.com\/election2019\/track_1x1.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"F1 leader Max Verstappen wins rain-hit Belgian GP sprint race, Oscar Piastri is second\" title=\"F1 leader Max Verstappen wins rain-hit Belgian GP sprint race, Oscar Piastri is second\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>Two-time reigning Formula One champion Max Verstappen won the rain-hit sprint race at the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday to extend his huge lead over Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez to 118 points.<\/p>\n<p>It was Verstappen\u2019s ninth straight win including the two sprint races he has won this season. He collected eight points for the victory and will look to extend his overall lead further in Sunday\u2019s main race as he continues his march to a third straight world title.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>\u201cThat was not bad,\u201d Verstappen said with casual understatement.<\/p>\n<p>He finished a comfortable 6.7 seconds ahead of McLaren driver Oscar Piastri and 10.7 clear of Alpine\u2019s Pierre Gasly.<\/p>\n<div class=\"osv-ad-class\" style=\"background-color: #f2f2f2;height: 375px;margin-bottom: 15px;\">\n<p>Story continues below this ad<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m getting more and more comfortable with the car, which is much better than it was at the start of the year,\u201d said the 22-year-old Piastri. \u201cIt\u2019s been amazing for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton crossed the line in fourth but dropped down to seventh after being given a five-second time penalty for causing a collision when trying to overtake Perez, who scored no points after retiring near the end.<\/p>\n<p>Hamilton\u2019s penalty moved Ferrari\u2019s Carlos Sainz Jr. into fourth spot ahead of his teammate Charles Leclerc, with McLaren\u2019s Lando Norris sixth and Mercedes driver George Russell in eighth behind his teammate Hamilton<\/p>\n<p>This was the third of six scheduled sprint races this season, with Perez winning in Azerbaijan and Verstappen winning in Austria and here. The top eight drivers all score points from eight down to one.<\/p>\n<div class=\"adboxtop adsizes\">\n<p>Story continues below this ad<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The sprint race was delayed by more than one hour due to heavy rain, getting underway with a rolling start procedure after several laps behind a safety car, in order to clear more water off the track for the sprint, which lasted 11 laps.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think the rolling start was the smart thing to do,\u201d Verstappen said. \u201c(But) I think we could have a raced a little earlier, maybe two laps earlier.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was a welcome result for Gasly, who crashed out of the Hungarian GP last weekend.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier, Verstappen edged out Piastri by just .011 seconds to take the sprint pole.<\/p>\n<div class=\"adboxtop adsizes\">\n<p>Story continues below this ad<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>The shortened qualifying format \u2014 known as the \u201csprint shootout\u201d \u2014 was delayed by 35 minutes because of wet and rainy conditions, with air blowers used to clear water from the track.<\/p>\n<p>Piastri shot to the top of the leaderboard on his last run, only for Verstappen to typically find extra pace.<\/p>\n<p>Aston Martin\u2019s Lance Stroll pushed too hard in the final seconds of Q2, the second part of qualifying, and slid off into the barriers, mangling his right tire and bringing out a red flag. His teammate Fernando Alonso was on his out lap when the crash happened and couldn\u2019t set a time, meaning he also failed to make it into Q3.<\/p>\n<p>Heavy rain had also impacted Friday\u2019s running at the 7-kilometer (4.3-mile) Spa-Francorchamps circuit, which is nestled in a forest amid the Ardennes countryside and is often impacted by gloomy weather.<\/p>\n<div class=\"adboxtop adsizes\">\n<p>Story continues below this ad<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Verstappen also set the fastest time in qualifying for Sunday\u2019s main race, but Leclerc will start from pole because of Verstappen\u2019s five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change. He begins Sunday\u2019s race from sixth, but that will not bother Verstappen considering he won here last year from 14th.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script>\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\nif(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\nn.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\ns.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\nfbq('init', '444470064056909');\nfbq('track', 'PageView');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/sports\/motor-sport\/f1-leader-max-verstappen-wins-rain-hit-belgian-gp-sprint-race-oscar-piastri-is-second-8867009\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two-time reigning Formula One champion Max Verstappen won the rain-hit sprint race at the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday to extend his huge lead over Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez to 118 points. It was Verstappen\u2019s ninth straight win including the two sprint races he has won this season. He collected eight points for the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/data.indianexpress.com\/election2019\/track_1x1.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[605],"tags":[6028,215513,6020,622,210836,1891,1427,1852,29212,83376,83377,1593,215512,73134,215511,12479,38516,1428,8613],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278763"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":278765,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278763\/revisions\/278765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}