On a warm afternoon at Spa-Francorchamps, the drivers lined up for the 15-lap Belgian Grand Prix Sprint with only 18 cars on the grid. Alpine suffered a troubled day as Franco Colapinto was forced to start from the pit lane after a smaller rear wing was fitted to his A525, while Pierre Gasly, who had qualified in eighth place, made it to the grid only to be pushed back into the garage due to a suspected water leak. Although Gasly eventually joined the race on Lap 3, he was already two laps behind.

At the front, Oscar Piastri made a clean start from pole position and led the field into Turn 1. Max Verstappen slotted in behind the McLaren and used the slipstream on the Kemmel Straight to take the lead heading into Les Combes. Charles Leclerc capitalised on McLaren’s higher downforce setup to pass Lando Norris and move into third, making a strong move out of Eau Rouge.

With DRS enabled from Lap 2, Piastri quickly closed back up to Verstappen, keeping the pressure on the Red Bull driver. Norris ran in fourth after losing a place early on but was able to stay within touching distance of the leaders. On Lap 4, Norris made a confident move on Leclerc to reclaim third place, diving up the inside at Les Combes. The three frontrunners then began to pull away from the rest of the field.

Behind them, Esteban Ocon ran in fifth ahead of Carlos Sainz. The midfield battle was tight, with Oliver Bearman in seventh defending hard from a chasing DRS train that included Isack Hadjar, Gabriel Bortoleto, Liam Lawson, and Yuki Tsunoda. George Russell and Lewis Hamilton struggled further back, with Hamilton reporting rear grip issues over team radio and eventually falling to 16th as rookie Andrea Kimi Antonelli applied pressure.

As the race progressed, Piastri remained within one second of Verstappen, waiting for an opportunity to strike. On Lap 9, Norris managed to close in and get within DRS range of his teammate. Piastri had his best chance on Lap 11 when he got a strong exit from Turn 1 and closed to within four tenths of Verstappen at Les Combes, but the Red Bull held its position despite Verstappen complaining about brake issues. Norris, told he had extra battery power available, looked poised to attack but never got close enough to challenge Piastri directly.

Into the final laps, the top three ran nose to tail. Verstappen held his nerve, Piastri could not get close enough to launch a proper attack, and Norris remained in third as McLaren opted not to risk letting their drivers fight each other. Verstappen crossed the line to take victory by just 0.753 seconds over Piastri, with Norris 1.4 seconds behind in third.

Leclerc finished fourth after falling away from the lead trio, while Ocon brought his Haas home in fifth ahead of Sainz in sixth. Bearman successfully kept the pack behind him to finish seventh and score valuable points, and Hadjar claimed the final point in eighth. Bortoleto and Lawson narrowly missed out on the points in ninth and tenth.