McLaren F1 drivers ordered to “minimise trouble” on lap one of Belgian GP

Saturday’s sprint race at Spa-Francorchamps confirmed McLaren Formula 1 driver Oscar Piastri’s claim that pole position at this circuit isn’t necessarily ideal. But there his chief battle on the opening lap was with receding title rival Max Verstappen.

In the grand prix both McLaren drivers will start on the front row, with Lando Norris ahead of Piastri, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in third. Verstappen, the sprint race winner, will be fourth on the grid after a scrappy qualifying.

And while in the sprint, Piastri and Norris drove prudently on the opening lap, avoiding contact as Verstappen and Charles Leclerc slipstreamed past into Les Combes, historically this area has been a pinch point.

Perhaps most ominously, given that the championship is presently being disputed by the McLaren pair, it is where Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg collided on the second lap of the 2014. That left Rosberg with a broken front wing, Hamilton with a puncture, and Daniel Ricciardo cantering to the third of what would be eight career grand prix victories.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella was on the pitwall that day as Fernando Alonso’s engineer at Ferrari and has a clear vision of how the opening lap of the 2025 race will unfold.

“I think both [McLaren] drivers will try, first of all, to have the fastest run through corner one,” he said in his post-qualifying media briefing, when a rainy race was more uncertain than it is as we publish these lines.

“I 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. I have to say that based on the weather forecast, this is not necessarily going to happen in dry conditions, so if it's 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.

Andrea Stella, McLaren

Photo by: Marcel van Dorst / EYE4images / NurPhoto via Getty Images

“At 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't be surprised if Leclerc is actually leading the group at the end of lap 1. So there's certainly some planning that you can do, but ultimately you have to let the drivers make their own assessment, their own judgement.

“Certainly what I will tell the drivers is that lap one is just lap one 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. And 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't go according to the outcome of qualifying.”

McLaren made a slight adjustment to the rear wings of both cars between the sprint race and qualifying, extending the Gurney flaps to generate additional downforce (at the cost of adding some drag) in anticipation of wet conditions in the grand prix. Between the morning and 5pm the chance of precipitation varies between 80% and 40%.

Red Bull also added more downforce to both its cars, likely to be an even higher order, since in the grand prix qualifying sessions Verstappen lost the 4km/h top-speed advantage he had enjoyed in sprint qualifying. That may not rule him out of challenging the McLarens at the beginning of the grand prix, but Leclerc is the driver on which McLaren’s focus lies.

“Leclerc behind us seems to be on a low-downforce setting again,” said Stella. “So we know that we will be exposed for the first lap, but Lando has proven today that, if you have enough of a pace advantage, like we had on Ferrari, then it may be possible to overtake – like it happened today with Lando overtaking [Leclerc, on lap four].”