2025 Belgian GP Betting Preview

Now, it is time for James Punt’s 2025 Belgian GP Betting preview. We managed to make another small profit at Silverstone, hopefully we can keep that momentum going. 

2025 Belgian GP Preview

It has been three weeks since an eventful British GP and we now have back-to-back races in Belgium and Hungary before the summer break.

The British GP ended with another win for Lando Norris, but it left Oscar Piastri peeved after receiving a 10 second penalty. His lead in the Drivers’ Championship is now down to 8 points. McLaren increased their lead in the Constructors’ Championship to 238 points.

We managed a small +2.55 point profit after hitting the post with a couple of bets. That brings the seasonal tally to -11.05 points and means we have recovered 24.43 points across the last three races. Hopefully we can get more profit on the board this weekend.

Last Year

Last year we had George Russell to win the race, which he did, before being disqualified for an underweight car. Thankfully, he had been presented with the trophy and that was the official result as far as the bookmakers were concerned.

As in 2023, this race weekend is a Sprint race format, so just one free practice session on Friday morning with the qualifying for the Sprint in the afternoon. Saturday sees the Sprint race in the morning before the Grand Prix qualifying in the afternoon, and the race itself on Sunday.

We have had two Sprint weekends so far in 2025 in China and Miami. Hamilton won from pole in China, a real false dawn for Ferrari. In Miami, Antonelli was on pole but the sprint race was won by Norris from Piastri, with Hamilton third. George Russell has finished fourth in both sprint races, and Tsunoda sixth in both.

The 2025 Belgian GP Track

The Spa-Francorchamps circuit is considered one of the very best racetracks in the world. It is an old school, fast, long track with changes of elevation and all sorts of corners. It is a power circuit but also a driver’s circuit, and of course, it tends to see rain. We have just had the British GP, on another fast, flowing, old school track, that tends to have rain. The form from Silverstone should carry through quite well to Spa.

2025 Belgian GP: The Weather

Trying to predict the weather in this part of the world is a dark art. As a golden rule, if there are any clouds about, it will probably rain. For what it is worth, the early forecast is for reasonably pleasant weather.

Temperatures will be around the 19 – 21 degree mark and rain showers are in the forecast every day, but they are saying much more likely in the mornings. The chance of showers on Sunday afternoon is 25%, but I suspect the forecast will change on a daily basis. It will not be hot, which will help Mercedes who had a very good weekend here last year.

Team-by-Team

McLaren

It is starting to get a bit niggly at McLaren. Piastri had a 22 point lead after the Canadian GP but Norris has cut it to just 8. Piastri was the better driver at Silverstone and dominated the race but was hampered by the various safety car deployments which wiped out his lead. In a dry race he would have been home a hosed.

He did go over the top with his heavy breaking behind the final safety car and while he felt aggrieved to get a 10 second penalty, it always looked likely that he would get some sort of penalty and it cost him the win and handed it to Norris. That was the bit that really stung.

Piastri was second here in 2024 and went well in the Sprint race in 2023, qualifying and finishing second. Lando Norris has only had three points finishes in the Belgian GP, two seventh places and best of 5th here last year.

Ferrari

Hamilton closed to within 16 points of his teammate after finishing fourth at Silverstone while Leclerc finished out of the points. Hamilton has out qualified Leclerc in three of the last four race weekends, but Leclerc usually gets the better race results.

Neither driver has won a Grand Prix in 2025, but Hamilton did win the Sprint race in China. It was in the GP the following day that they had both cars disqualified and discovered that they could not run their car at the optimum ride height. If they did, excessive plank wear would get them disqualified again. The Sprint races allow Ferrari to run the car lower as the plank will not receive the same sort of wear as the sprints are over shorter distances, and the car is lighter because it needs less fuel.

New Suspension

Ferrari will finally be running their much-anticipated new rear suspension setup this weekend. They had a ‘filming day’ at Fiorano last week and it was on the car for that. It always strikes me as strange that teams bring upgrades to sprint race weekends, when they have just one hour of free practice, before we get to the important stuff. But, it seems, many are happy to do so.

The basic idea is to have a suspension that keeps the rear end of the car lower under braking, so offers more rear stability in the braking and corner turn-in areas. Thus, maximising the ground effect downforce by allowing the car to run lower. Not being able to do so since the Chinese GP has left Ferrari fighting with one arm behind their back. If it works, the Ferrari will have more downforce across the speed range and make it more predictable to drive.

There is one potential risk involved and that is at high speed. It can cause the rear to run low enough to cause the plank to hit the track surface and risk it wearing down below the permitted level, as happened to Ferrari in China. No doubt trying to find a happy medium is the reason why getting it on the car has taken so long.

Bigger Threat

Ferrari may be a bigger threat this weekend than usual. It took them a while to get their new floor working well, and the suspension upgrade should take them up another notch. How much? Hard to say, but I have read that they expect around 0.1 second a lap improvement. Not huge, but useful.

I read an interesting piece by Mark Hughes who was speculating about another potential problem with the Ferrari. He has noted that they struggle to improve in the Q3 sessions in qualifying. Most teams find a bit more performance in Q3. Ferrari don’t, and sometimes even go a little slower. He speculated that it could be a power unit overheating problem, causing it to change the air/fuel mix in order to stop it damaging the engine.

There clearly is a problem with their qualifying pace compared to their race pace and it does make some sense. I wonder whether all their ‘lift and coast’ instructions later in the races might be related? Charles Leclerc was dropping some hints at Silverstone that they had a problem which he didn’t want to go into, so why sort of go into it with hints of a problem?

In the turbo-hybrid era Hamilton has won four times here with a further four podiums. His win here last year was thanks to George Russell being disqualified and Hamilton didn’t always get the better of his teammates here. Charles Leclerc won here in 2019 (that was when Ferrari were running a power unit that was very powerful but not at all illegal, honest guv) and has been third for the last two years.

Mercedes

Never quite dominated here in the turbo-hybrid era, but still won five of the last eleven. Last year’s win is worth considering. Russell ‘won’ the race thanks to him opting for a one stop strategy. He wanted to see if he could make the tyres last the distance, against the common wisdom. They did, and he crossed the line first, only to be disqualified a couple of hours later when the car was weighed.

The speculation was that because the drivers do not do an in lap at the end of this race, on which they drive through all the rubber ‘marbles’ in order to pick up weight, that caused the car to be lighter than expected. Also, because his tyres had worn down more than the two stoppers, it meant that they had lost more weight than expected.

Tyre Management

The relevance for this weekend’s race is that Mercedes managed their tyres very well and that is not a strength of their cars in the ground effect era. They need a cool, or cold, track surface and low abrasion tarmac if they are to be able to go flat out attack over a race distance.

For them to be able to do it last year, suggests that this is a track that they might go well on again. The track is well maintained and is nice and smooth. It was re-laid in 2024 and was like a billiard table as a result. After a year’s weather and all the racing done here, it might not be quite as smooth, but we will have to see. The weather is forecast to be warm, rather than hot. There might be some rain, which could cool the surface further.

Long Duration Corners

However, there are a lot of high speed, long duration corners and they are out of the Mercedes’ comfort zone. Russell won in Canada, which was a cool conditions race, on a smooth track that had very little in the way of fast, long duration corners. It was perfect. This weekend’s combination of the crucial factors looks like that they will have two of the three ingredients needed.

Maybe Russell’s best chance to shine this weekend is in the sprint race. On low fuel, over a short distance, in fairly cool conditions, and on a smooth track, that might allow Mercedes to go flat out. He has been fourth in the two previous sprints in 2025 and might be worth following this weekend.

His track record isn’t great outside of his ‘win’ here last year. He was second for Williams here in 2021 but that was the year where qualifying was a rain affected shambles, and the ‘race’ on Sunday amounted to a few laps behind the safety car with no overtaking allowed.

Red Bull

Since we last went racing, Red Bull have sacked their team principle of some twenty years, Christian Horner. There has been a power struggle at Red Bull ever since the death of Dietrich Mateschitz in 2022. Horner had the support of the Thai family who own 51% of the business, but with the decline in the team’s fortune, he finally lost that support.

Horner is just another of a long list of the top people at Red Bull who have left the team in the last couple of years. They have come to the end of their golden years, and that era was largely built by Horner and like him or loath him, he will be missed.

Mekies In

Horner has been replaced by Racing Bulls’ team principle Laurent Mekies. He only left Ferrari as their Racing Director in 2023, so this is the third desk his has got his feet under in two years. He will not really know the Red Bull structure and being parachuted in, mid-season, to replace the longest serving team principle in the paddock, looks very messy, and messy is a good way to describe Red Bull right now.

The speculation over Max Verstappen’s future at the team will only strengthen now, and that is another distraction they do not need.

Red Bull have won four races here in the turbo Hybrid era and Verstappen won three of them, but one was the farcical 2021 race. He was on pole at Silverstone, which suggests the car can go well on these types of circuits, but they do not have the best race car anymore.

Williams

Have scored just five points from the last three races and their season has hit the buffers. Only Haas has scored fewer points in the last four races. The car is now less competitive, they have ended development earlier than anyone else and operationally, they have been poor. The two drivers are still rating the car as good enough for a decent points score in the races, but the team as a whole is not performing well.

They do have one final update which has been in the pipeline for a long time, probably before the start of the season, but when is it coming? And of course, the other teams probably will have their own little upgrades to come.

Albon has three top 10s here, but just one tenth place for Williams. Carlos Sainz does have a pole position and podium here in 2022 for Ferrari, but also four DNFs, a DNS and just four point scoring finishes from his ten races here.

Sauber

The Sauber was the worst car on the grid for the first eight races of the season, scoring just six lucky points in Melbourne in the opening race. They have now scored 35 points in the last four races since they introduced an upgrade in Spain. Hulkenberg even scored his first ever podium finish at Silverstone. More points have to be expected now. Hulkenberg hasn’t scored here since 2019, but he has had five points scoring finishes, including two fourth places.

Racing Bulls

Once again, Racing Bulls have had their continuity broken by events at Red Bull. They have had to change drivers with Red Bull and now the parent company have pinched their team principle. It is far from ideal, but shouldn’t impact on the car’s performance, but it might operationally. Laurent Mekies was quite a hands-on principle, at the smaller teams they have to be, and he will be missed on the pit wall.

The team have been eclipsed by Sauber since the Spanish GP and while they still have to be considered for a points finish, Hadjar has not been as competitive in the last few races and Lawson is still not looking like officer material, despite a couple of top eight finishes in the last five races.

Hadjar has a win in F4 and F2 at Spa, Lawson also won here in F2.

Aston Martin

Have scored points in the last four races and earned a double points finish at Silverstone. That was helped by the nature of the race and four retirements, but Alonso has made Q3 in five of the last six races and had four consecutive points finishes, but a top six remains elusive. He is still four points behind Lance Stroll which is ridiculous. He has finished 5/5/8 here in the last three years and has to be in the frame for another few points.

Haas

Bearman has now had three consecutive eleventh place finishes and if he could just get his qualifying sorted out more points should come, and much the same goes for Ocon. The Frenchman has been out qualified by Bearman in the last four races, but he has 23 of the teams 29 points.

Alpine

Pierre Gasly once again maxed out the Alpine’s potential at Silverstone, finishing sixth and picking up another eight points. The fact that the race was rain affected and had a lot of running behind safety cars meant that their weak energy recovery system wasn’t exposed in the same way as it would have in a dry race.

He may get his required conditions again this weekend. We are in the Ardennes, after all, and rain is not uncommon, but in the dry, the car will struggle. Gasly has a good record here with five top nine finishes and he finished third in the 2023 sprint race. Sadly, this year’s car isn’t good enough unless it rains.

2025 Belgian GP Summary

The cloudy weather forecast for the area this weekend is not making things easy. It is very hard to trust the forecasts in this area which has its own microclimate. The fact that clouds are forecast for all three days means there is a decent chance of rain.

Sunday will see the temperatures drop a couple of degrees and with ‘thick cloud cover’ there will be no direct sunshine to heat the track surface. Saturday will be a little warmer, but still with a high degree of cloud cover. Again keeping the track surface relatively cool.

Having won nine of the first twelve races of the season, McLaren are the obvious favourites to win again. The team have not won here since 2012 and with Norris not having had much success here, perhaps Piastri makes more appeal.

He was very good in the 2023 sprint race and was runner up in the 2024 race. Piastri is the marginal 2.75 favourite, Norris 2.88. I will return to the Grand Prix market later in the weekend. By that stage, the weather forecast may be clearer, but I doubt it, and we will have seen the cars in competitive action.

As it is a sprint race weekend, I will start with that and revisit the proper stuff later in the weekend.

Hard To Beat McLaren

McLaren will be hard to beat. They have two drivers who have diverged on their suspension setups. Norris has gone for the latest upgrade, Piastri the older one. Significant? It doesn’t appear to be.

We have two teams outside of McLaren who are of interest this weekend. Ferrari, with the long-awaited suspension upgrade, and Mercedes, who may get the conditions they need to be competitive. Can they beat McLaren? Probably not, but they should at least be closer.

We have had three teams winning at least two races here in the last seven years, Red Bull won three (but one wasn’t a real race), Mercedes two and Ferrari two. It has been won by the car that has been best suited to the track and that has not always been the favourite. So, I am prepared to speculate on not just McLaren this weekend.

Sprints Are Different

The Sprint races are different beasts. The teams have just one practice session to find their best setup for the Sprint qualifying and race. The reset button is then pressed, and setups can be changed for the proper business of the weekend.

The sprint races are short distances, just 11 laps around this track, and the cars start with light fuel loads, have no pit stops and tyre wear is less of an issue.

Lewis Hamilton was on pole and won the sprint in China and he was best of the non-McLaren’s in Miami. The format has suited the Ferrari by not exposing their weaknesses. With a hopefully improved car, they may be a little closer to the ultimate pace. If their suspension upgrade is to work, we will notice it more on Sunday.

Antonelli got the pole for Mercedes in Miami and Russell has finished fourth in both sprint races. Mercedes won the Grand Prix here last year (there was no sprint in 2024) and the resurfaced, smooth track played its part.

With the weather forecast for the weekend tending to cooler, cloudy and possibly wet conditions, and with a smooth track surface (unless it has deteriorated a lot in 12 months), Mercedes have most of what they need to be at their best. That means that Russell could be back in the frame for podiums.

Tyres

Pirelli have thrown in a bit of a curve ball for this weekend. They are bringing the C1, C3 and C4 compounds. This is the first time since Austria 2022 that they have skipped a compound. By not bringing the C2, they are trying to make a two stop race more attractive.

The harder compounds chosen might favour Ferrari who, in several recent Grand Prix, have performed significantly better on harder tyre compounds, whereas it has occasionally struggled with the softer compounds, such as the C6 used earlier in the season.

Last year the hardest compound was the C2, so we are one step harder and the performance differential between the hards and mediums will be greater. I would think that most will want to run the hards for the race on Sunday (if dry) and try for the one stop that won it for Russell last year.

However, the bigger performance difference will encourage the strategists to consider a two-stopper on faster compounds, so we may see different options being taken. Of course, any rain makes all that largely irrelevant.

Experiment

The compound skip is an experiment by Pirelli to see if they can encourage different strategies. Throwing that into a sprint race weekend with rain in the mix means this weekend is a very high risk situation. As such, I will be leaving most of the bets until nearer the start of each session, but I will have one small bet on the Sprint race for now.

George Russell has finished fourth in the two sprints so far and with the car likely to get the kind of conditions and track surface it needs to be at its best, he might be able to go one place better. Hamilton also makes some appeal at 2.75 but we will know more about their competitiveness after Friday’s running.

I am prepared to gamble that the Mercedes will be able to cope with the long duration corners as we have the harder tyre in play. That should help him push without too much degradation. Perhaps in the shorter format, Mercedes could even run the C3 so long as the conditions are cool, and they should be.

2025 Belgian GP Tip: 1 point George Russell to finish on the Sprint Race podium @ 3.25 with Hills, Boylesports

There are a few Grand Prix bets on the radar but there really is no need to rush this weekend. The sprint race format is very messy and meant to artificially mix things up. It really isn’t needed at a track like this and I am more comfortable being patient this weekend, especially with the weather forecast and the compound skip to further increase uncertainty.

There will updates for Sprint qualifying tomorrow, the Sprint race and GP qualifying on Saturday, and the usual Race Day Update on Sunday.

-JamesPunt