“Break Of Serve.”
Formula 1 is back from its mini vacation and it’s time to kick off the second half of the 2025 season. And the arena for its post-intermission salvo is Spa-Francorchamps and the Belgian Grand Prix. Furthermore, it was a Sprint weekend too, and we all know how popular they are within the world of the F1 fandom! *has tomato hit me in the face*
Let’s get into it.
This Is A Spa Day Joke
Spa’s a tricky bastard in the days of modern F1. It has all the elements you need to push the “why don’t they race in the rain more?” agenda. We’ve been through this before:
- Spa is in the mountains and surrounded by forest. The spray and the moisture stays in the air for longer than other tracks
- Low clouds mean fog is common and further adds to potential visibility problems
- Pirelli’s intermediates combined with the rear diffuser throw up so much spray that it makes following virtually impossible, not because of the standing water, but because of the spray, so even with low levels of rain, it makes racing very hard.
- And no, the Extreme Wet is not going to be used, it’s a horrible race tire that’s several seconds off what an Intermediate is. And if it’s too wet for an Inter, we’re probably not racing.
If you can’t see six feet in front of you, even with the rear lights, you shouldn’t be racing. It’s exactly how Isack Hadjar ended up crashing into the back of Kimi Antonelli back at Silverstone. That was an understandable reason for the stewards to bring out a Safety Car when the rain got so heavy. The same reason we delayed Miami’s Sprint after Charles Leclerc aqua-planed off the track in virtually a straight line on an installation lap.
I get it. F1 has to walk an incredible tightrope in the eyes of many between safety, and entertainment when it comes to wet racing. Some of the sport’s greatest moments, and our own mentality for seeing the best in the world at their very best is an engrossing feeling. But personally, I’d rather the sport be proactive in preventing the next big potential accident, than waiting for it to happen before acting. Like I’ve said in my brief time as an MMA fan – I’d rather a fight be stopped too early, than too late. If that means we deny ourselves a potential classic – I can live with that.
Funnily enough – It was the rolling start when we did get going that arguably defined the race. Polesitter Lando Norris had a poor launch, and then had a twitch coming out of La Source, and it opened the door for an easy pass for the lead for Oscar Piastri. It sucks a little bit that the late start meant we didn’t get a deeper wet to dry transition, but it did give us a split at the front with Piastri on the Mediums and Norris on the Hards. Now, Pirelli tried something different with this weekend for the first time – They skipped a compound, with the C1, C3 and C4 taken. The problem was, the 1-stopper onto the Medium was the play, because it was durable enough to go 60-70% of the race distance, with the big pace differential only really coming in the final eight laps or so. Pirelli was aiming to avoid this scenario, but the wet running made the window jussssssssst long enough to not make a second stop worth making. Unideal.
Now, I think people will be quick to remember the minor mistakes Norris made while trying to chase Piastri down. He ran wide at Pouhon, he locked up and ran wide at La Source twice more down the stretch. Combined, it likely cost him around three seconds, in a race he lost by 3.4 at the line. I think the bigger influence was being the second McLaren on track, because it meant running an extra lap on overheating Inters on a drying track, and then lost another second due to a slow stop. He came out to an eight second gap, and that was always going to be a big ask regardless of strategy.
Norris likely lost this one off the start line, and there might be some mitigation even in that because of back and forth between him and the pit wall about his battery not charging back how it should have. But this is how we talk about Lando in 2025 – His errors. It sucks for a driver so good, but this is how we have to find the margins when a World Championship is at stake.
Doubling down on the suckitude – All of this feels like it’s taking credit away from Piastri, who was exceptional in the race. Took the lead on the opening lap, controlled the race in the rain, and had enough pace in hand to control the gap, and effectively force Norris into overdriving the car to try and bridge that gap. He was outstanding, and that should be the main takeaway from this race.
Nico Rosberg: The New Meta
Not sure how I feel about this one. It’s a compliment, but I don’t like it because it’s a position based on influence and privilege, but Nico Rosberg is very, very good at working as a broadcaster. It’s the luxurious position of him being a content, former driver who’s now rich and influential as shit, and with nothing to lose. Remember, this was a guy who went from zero to 1.4 million subscribers in a relatively short amount of time working the YouTube vlogger game with track guides, quick wit, influencer style FOMO and fast cars. He knows how to work a media profile.
I don’t like calling myself a journalist even if I have experience as one, but even I know in F1’s very insular world, access is everything. You know why more journos didn’t give Christian Horner and Red Bull shit over his sexting scandal? Because the people who could spin it up, are risking cutting ties with internal sources, getting no time with an F1 team, which could compromise their story writing potential, and could even get cease and desist notices dropped on their lap. Ultimately, it could cost you your job, and most reasonable people aren’t prepared to make that sacrifice, especially when the Motorsport industry isn’t one brimming with work on a regular basis. Trust me, I’d know.
Nico Rosberg has nothing to lose in that regard. He’s not a journalist. He’s not hanging around the media centers drinking his body weight in coffee while wearing flannel shirts. He’ll be on the first flight back to Germany to hang with his wife and kids and sail around on his boat while checking up on his multiple businesses. He hasn’t got relationships to maintain, so he can go in there with both barrels and not be afraid of any repercussions1. And he does an excellent job at asking the uncomfortable questions we would want to ask, but either lack the balls to say, or know the journo’s can’t cross that line over.
Confronting Jos Verstappen over Horner’s recent signing and saying: “NOW you’re quiet?” was as many of us would say: “Piping hot tea”. It was skin-crawling, but also satisfying to hear someone who’s spread a lot of internal shit on the walls, actually get confronted2. He waxed lyrical about how Toto Wolff is a hard negotiator who drops off the grid when it comes to contract talks, admitted he made it all up, and everyone just laughed and moved on. Rosberg has become Sky Sports F1’s breath of fresh air and a voice of the voiceless. CM Punk, but a bit more careful when it comes to bridge burning.
I talked about this before with Jacques Villeneuve last year in Canada, who’s a bit more mean spirited about his opinions than Nico, but this is the direction that Sports Broadcasting and Journalism is going. It isn’t about what you know, it’s about how you make people feel. It’s more about driving “personalities” and courting stars for attention and clicks than it’s ever been3. It’s so much more about creating debate and entertainment than it is about facts and context. It’s why I feel uneasy about Rosberg’s success on Sky, but I sure as hell respect his hustle and can’t say it’s not effective. If you need engagement, you bring Nico to a race weekend. He’s exceptional at it.
The Lightning Round
Great drive from Charles Leclerc to stay in third the whole way and hold off Max Verstappen down the stretch, that Ferrari wasn’t slow by any stretch. And good recovery from Lewis to get back to seventh after a pair of horrible qualifying sessions over the weekend.
Bad news chaos merchants – Max Verstappen is staying for 2026. And honestly, I think that’s the right decision. Better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t. Given Mercedes have gone in so hard for Max in the last two years, there’s no reason to think Toto Wolff won’t try again for 2027. By then, we’ll have a much better knowledge of the state of the field. Excellent Sprint win from Max too – He now has more Sprint Wins (12) than every other winner combined (9). One more fun Max fact – Hasn’t finished on a GP podium for three races in a row, last time he did that? 2019.
What’s going to be interesting now for this silly season is what kind of contract George Russell gets for 2025. Rumours are Russell wants a big commitment of his prime years to the team (2+2 sort of deal). I suspect Toto might lowball Russell to a 1+1 like he did with Lewis, just to give himself the option again next year of bringing Verstappen in. Again, I ask – Is Max that much better to keep short-changing an elite driver in his own right in Russell?!
Great weekend from Gabriel Bortoleto for getting into Q3 and then holding onto P9. Could have had both cars in the points but Sauber 2-stopped Hulk outta 10th and couldn’t get it back. Also, as I said in my mid-season review, Pierre Gasly is driving the nuts off that Alpine for not too much.
Loved that everyone involved in the podium had exactly eight F1 wins – Oscar Piastri, Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc, and Jacky Ickx, who gave out the trophy for third place.
Rare F2 mention here, but Alex Dunne losing a Feature Race win due to Rodin screwing up his starting procedure, handing the win to Arvid Lindblad, only for him to be DQ’ed because his tire pressures were too low, is peak F2. Roman Stanek is a Feature Race winner. Man.
The Verdict: 4/10 (Poor) – Nope. This one just didn’t work. It’s not Spa’s fault, really. The Pirelli tyre experiment didn’t work and we had one viable strategy, with Norris trying to force a square peg into a round hole to try and make the C1 hard work, the rain didn’t add much jeopardy or risk to the proceedings, and in the dry, the limited battling just wasn’t very entertaining. A shame, as a 394,000 record weekend attendance for the weekend is incredible and they deserved a better show for what they got. See you in Hungary.
- Look, Danica Patrick still gets regular work and her Podcast I know for a fact would make her radioactive to many a broadcaster. I just hope I don’t get accused of being a lizard for this reasonable take. ↩︎
- And knowing what we know about Jos Verstappen, I can allow a game of “bully the bully” just this once. ↩︎
- No disrespect to anyone involved, but F1 is SO insular by proxy that anyone who even gets a smidge of influencer access into the industry become overnight celebrities. You don’t have to do much searching on Instagram, TikTok or scour the F1 Podcast section on Apple, it’s pretty obvious. The 2020 DTS boom had a LOT of people pivoting into this space. ↩︎
