2025 Belgian GP Qualifying Preview

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2025 Belgian GP Qualifying preview. James landed a lovely 6.00 winner in the Sprint Race, hopefully there’s more to come. 

2025 Belgian GP Qualifying

It was good to get the Sprint race win bet up. It went the way I hoped it would, with Verstappen using his better straight line speed to take the lead and then was very hard to pass. Now the teams have to make a big decision before the Grand Prix Qualifying.

The decision is whether to set the car up for a possible wet race, by putting more downforce/drag on the car to cope better with a wet track, or do they take a gamble that the rain will have cleared by the time the race starts?

All the forecasts say it will rain on Sunday, but when? The majority are saying the rain will be in the morning and that the afternoon will be cloudy, but dry. The problem is that this mountainous area has its own microclimate. It is my golden rule that if it is cloudy at Spa, there is a good chance it will rain. It may not be raining a few miles away at lower altitudes, but up in the hills, it can be very different.

Moisture In Air

The fact that the track is cut through a forest means that any moisture tends to hang in the air. Mist is hard to clear and when you get F1 cars running on this track, the spray they throw up tends to stay in the air, it doesn’t blow away. The track is slow to dry. Even if the rain has stopped before the race, it may well still be wet and stay wet for a while.

However, if the rain stops mid-morning and we get all the support races run, then the track might have dried to a large degree. In that case, a team that gambled on a dry race and ran with less downforce/drag, would hold a competitive advantage.

It is my guess that most teams will tend towards a higher downforce set up. If you run low downforce here and the track gets wet, you are in trouble. We saw some teams getting caught out the same way at Silverstone.

Cautious

The teams who are fighting for the big points tend to be the more cautious and any weather gamblers are likely to be those who normally reside in the bottom of the half of the grid.

The fact that setup changes are very likely means that much of what we have learned from the sprint race is now of limited value.

Red Bull ran a low downforce setup for the Sprint part of the weekend and got the win. They are now likely to put more wing on the car and will be slower on the straights. They would have to give away that advantage to McLaren.

McLaren Looking Strong

McLaren are in a strong position now. Their car produces the most efficient downforce. They can put on more wing without losing so much straight-line speed. Any sky juice falling is music to their ears.

Qualifying at Spa is a funny affair. They say that it is the one place that you do not want to qualify on pole. Today’s sprint race demonstrated why but a driver can’t really try to qualify second or third, and you do still need to be near the front of the grid, especially if there is a lot of spray being thrown up. They had to neutralise the race at Silverstone when the rain really came down, because visibility was so bad. You can multiply that by a factor of three at Spa.

The curse of pole position thing at Spa is a bit overdone. Six of the last ten race winners here came from pole, after all, but the last three have not. The drivers will be gunning for pole, and if they fall just short, well, that’s OK.

The driver starting from second has only won one of the last ten races here, a lot worse strike rate than the pole sitter. The driver starting from third has only won once in the last twenty-five years, which is a surprise, but not as big a surprise as the fact that nobody starting fourth has ever won here. That grid position is truly cursed.

2025 Belgian GP Qualifying Summary

We are effectively starting with a clean sheet of paper for this session, but what has been clear to me is that the McLaren holds the aces. They have the most efficient downforce and any setup changes across the grid towards more downforce, which is likely for this session, just increases their advantage.

McLaren have had eight of the twelve Grand Prix poles from the first twelve races of the season, and five of the last six. Norris has had four of the last five, but Piastri has beaten Norris in the three sessions so far this weekend. It is his favourite track. He was out qualified by Norris here last year (by 0.046) but out qualified Norris in both the sprint qualifying and race qualifying on debut in 2023.

Max vs McLarens

Just as the sprint qualifying was between the two McLaren’s and Verstappen yesterday, it would be a huge surprise if that were not still the case today, but perhaps with the advantage shifting to McLaren. They could choose to take a little wing off the car, or more likely, Red Bull will have to put more wing on the Red Bull bearing in mind the possibility of rain tomorrow.

Piastri is the 1.65 favourite, Norris 4.00 and Verstappen 5.00.

Piastri has had three pole positions in 2025, Norris five and Verstappen four. The Red Bull – Verstappen combination is best on these fast, old school racetracks, but the McLaren is best equipped to be fast in all three sectors and put together the best lap time.

In yesterday’s FP1 McLarens ‘perfect lap’ i.e. adding together their best three sectors was 0.434 faster than Verstappen’s.

Norris Represents Value

If I am right about downforce levels changing, and that improving McLaren’s chances, it looks more like a shootout between Piastri and Norris. It is Norris who is 7-5 in qualifying with his teammate and 4-1 in the last five. This is Piastri’s favourite track and given his performances so far, he deserves to be favourite, but should Norris be as big as 4.00 for 2025 Belgian GP Qualifying? Given their recent qualifying H2H record, no. Norris looks the value bet.

Being fastest in Sprint qualifying does not mean that qualifying proper returns the same result. We have had eight sprint race weekends with the ‘new’ format  where the two qualifying sessions are separated by the sprint race, and only two have seen the sprint pole man being the Grand Prix pole man.

2025 Belgian GP Qualifying Tip: 1 point e/w Lando Norris to be the fastest qualifier @ 4.00 with Ladbrokes, Hills, Skybet, Betfair (1/3 the odds 1-2)

-JamesPunt