Max Verstappen will start from second place in the Sprint Race. From this position, he will have to try to defeat Oscar Piastri, while Lando Norris is behind him. This is the provisional starting grid for the Sprint at Spa-Francorchamps.
During the sprint qualification, Verstappen lagged behind Piastri as the gap went to four and a half tenths of a second. However, this still gave the Dutchman second position. Norris was slower, six tenths of a second behind Piastri.
Verstappen starts in second: this is the provisional starting grid
Outside of the top three, Charles Leclerc is 'the best of the rest'. The Ferrari driver was 1.5 tenths slower than Norris, but this turned out to be enough for P4. Behind him, Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz ended up at P5 and P6, who again finished ahead of Oliver Bearman and Pierre Gasly. Isack Hadjar and Gabriel Bortoleto rounded off the top ten.
Particularly striking were the eliminations of George Russell in SQ2 and of Lewis Hamilton and Andrea Kimi Antonelli in SQ1. Russell's time was not fast enough, so he could only manage P13. For Hamilton, his qualifying ended with a spin. As a result, he starts the Sprint provisionally from eighteenth position. Antonelli also spun and had no grip in his second run. The Italian starts last, from twentieth position.
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