{"id":809454,"date":"2026-07-19T03:41:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T03:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/809454\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T03:41:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T03:41:12","slug":"f1-belgian-grand-prix-2026-tough-weekend-ahead-for-oscar-piastri-after-seventh-place-qualifier-kimi-antonelli-on-pole-in-spa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/809454\/","title":{"rendered":"F1 Belgian Grand Prix 2026: \u2018Tough weekend\u2019 ahead for Oscar Piastri after seventh place qualifier, Kimi Antonelli on pole in Spa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teenage sensation Kimi Antonelli<\/a> has added a sixth pole position to his 2026 tally after setting the fastest lap in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The Mercedes star bested Red Bull\u2019s Max Verstappen<\/a> by 0.3 seconds and dedicated the pole position to his father, Marco, who celebrated his 62nd birthday on qualifying day in Spa. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Kimi Antonelli celebrates pole. \u00a0AP Photo\/Omar Havana<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s go, man, let\u2019s go,\u201d Antonelli said over the radio. <\/p>\n

\u201cHappy birthday, dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lando Norris rounded out the top three, but will tumble down the order due to McLaren changing his engine, starting Monday AEST\u2019s race in 13th place<\/a>. <\/p>\n

His teammate, Oscar Piastri<\/a>, will begin the race from seventh, though he admitted after the session it has been a heavily compromised weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a bit of a struggle. It started okay in FP1, but then yesterday we had an issue. So I missed the start and a little bit of FP2,\u201d Piastri said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut even the laps I did were tricky. And then today it\u2019s been the same story. So eventually it was a little bit more respectable.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s been a tough weekend, that\u2019s for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

A hydraulics issue interrupted his practice sessions<\/a>, meaning the Aussie has been without long-run data due to a lack of track time. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t really know,\u201d he said when asked by reporters about his race pace.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t really do that many laps in FP2 in terms of race running. So it\u2019s very hard to read where we are.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I think that the pack around us is very tight. We\u2019re probably just at the back of it. So we\u2019ll see what we can do. But it\u2019s not going to be easy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teenage sensation Kimi Antonelli has added a sixth pole position to his 2026 tally after setting the fastest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809455,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-809454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809454"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809454\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}