Winners and losers from the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix qualifying<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI think both [McLaren] drivers will try, first of all, to have the fastest run through corner one,\u201d he said as per Motorsport.com.<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess positioning for the one that will be in P2, positioning the car in order to be able to take the slipstream, will be potentially a decisive factor. <\/p>\n
\u201cI have to say that based on the weather forecast, this is not necessarily going to happen in dry conditions, so if it\u2019s wet it will be even more interesting, because Eau Rouge may not be easy flat, like it is nowadays on lap 1 in a Formula 1 car.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the same time, while you look ahead, you will have to look a little bit behind, because Ferrari has a significant speed advantage, so I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if Leclerc is actually leading the group at the end of lap 1. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo there\u2019s certainly some planning that you can do, but ultimately you have to let the drivers make their own assessment, their own judgement.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly what I will tell the drivers is that lap 1 is just lap 1 of 44, and when you have such a good competitive car, you just have to make sure that we minimise the trouble during lap 1. <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd then if we execute the race in the best possible way, I think we will be in condition to regain the possibility to win the race, even if lap 1 doesn\u2019t go according to the outcome of qualifying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norris will line up on pole position chasing a third successive Grand Prix win. Winning in Austria and Silverstone, the Briton closed the gap to his championship-leading team-mate to just nine points as F1 enters the second half of the season.<\/p>\n
The Briton predicts the racing on Sunday will be more intense than Saturday\u2019s processional Sprint.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think as soon as you start to bring in some strategy and tyre differences, especially with the C1 to the C3, C4 jump, I definitely expect more racing if it was to be dry,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe tricky thing is you\u2019re talking about the field being more compact than ever, which puts on a good show in qualifying and things are tight and thrilling and great to watch. But that often just makes it trickier at times for the racing. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe gaps are smaller, you can make smaller differences from car to car and driver to driver. So, there are pros and cons in everything. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe more we develop these cars, generally the trickier it becomes to overtake and to follow as well. It\u2019s never an easy one to get right. But I\u2019m sure if it was a dry race tomorrow, I\u2019d expect more racing. I don\u2019t expect it to be dry, so I expect just more racing and more chaos anyway. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think sometimes there are some Sprints every now and then that are like that because everyone\u2019s pushing a bit more flat out through the race. You\u2019re thinking less of strategy. You\u2019re not thinking of doing a one or two-stop. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, we\u2019ll wait and find out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mother Nature could also have a say with rain forecast during the Grand Prix after a very wet start to the day saw the Formula 3 race cancelled after just two laps under Safety Car due to adverse weather conditions.<\/p>\n
Norris admits the rain could create a chaotic race.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably going to rain,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know much more than that. We\u2019ll wait and see. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s Spa, so high chance of rain, but that can also mean it just sometimes hits half the track and the other half stays dry. Could be in for a Silverstone-esque chaotic race, similar to Australia or Silverstone, the ones that are sometimes a bit in the middle. Most likely some rain and drizzle. Hard to know. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going off the front, so hopefully, I can make an advantage of that and clean air and go from there.<\/p>\n
Read next: Lewis Hamilton\u2019s race engineer called out for lack of \u2019empathy\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McLaren team principal Andrea Stella says he \u201cwouldn\u2019t be surprised\u201d if Charles Leclerc was leading the Belgian Grand…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27579,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[16873,49,48,578,576,577,1613,590,44,82],"class_list":["post-27578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-belgian-grand-prix","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-home-page","tag-mclaren","tag-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}