Lando Norris has always maintained confidence in his abilities even as the season has ebbed and flowed, a point he felt he made definitively in claiming pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix. While Norris soared Lewis Hamilton was left bereft, offering only apologies to his team for an “unacceptable” error that left him languishing in 16th place here.
Norris took pole with a storming lap to edge out his McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, by the slenderest of margins – 0.085sec – on the challenging circuit in the Ardennes mountains that rewards commitment and precision. Charles Leclerc did well to put his Ferrari into third, while Max Verstappen, having won the sprint race earlier in the day, claimed fourth for Red Bull.
