With a Ferrari and a Mercedes already on the sidelines before SQ1 was over, qualifying for the latest Formula 1 sprint race at the Belgian Grand Prix was full of shocks from the outset.
Here's our pick of the big winners and losers on a pretty mixed-up (first place aside) Spa grid.
Loser - Mercedes (13th & 20th)
Mercedes had arrived in Belgium hopeful of a strong showing – especially after its dominant performance last year where it finished 1-2 on the road before George Russell's later disqualification.
But while the pace of the car did not look too bad on Friday, Mercedes managed to pull defeat from the jaws of victory as an unexplained spin in SQ1 for Kimi Antonelli appears to have derailed team-mate Russell's afternoon too.
Antonelli labelled his off at Stavelot as "weird" as he reckoned that potentially a gust of wind may have played it part in him losing the rear of his car in an incident that left him dead last in qualifying.
The timing of Antonelli's moment could not have been worse for Russell though as he was one of the first cars to run through the gravel cloud thrown up by his team-mate – and he suspects this was the trigger for his failure to make it out of SQ2.
A HUGE moment for Antonelli! 😮
— Formula 1 (@F1) July 25, 2025
He does a 360° through the gravel at Stavelot #F1 #BelgianGP pic.twitter.com/OSnsKUiAF4
"I ran over all of that gravel when Kimi went off, and for the rest of that lap, it felt terrible. The lap after, it felt terrible," said Russell, who did not make it through to SQ3 and will start 13th
"Then my lap in Q2 felt terrible, and we saw some damage on the car. We need to see if that's the reason, because obviously it's a big shock to be out in Q2."
Mercedes trackside engineering director Andrew Shovlin reckoned indeed that “gravel rash” from Antonelli’s car was the trigger for Russell’s struggles afterwards
“That was likely a contributing factor in our disappointing performance in SQ2,” he said. - Jon Noble
Winner - Oscar Piastri (1st)
Oscar Piastri's Spa record is mighty - he has now had obvious high points in each of his three F1 visits to this legendary track.
He finished second in the sprint race and outqualified team-mate Lando Norris by three tenths of a second as a rookie in 2023, beat Norris on his way to second place in last year's race, and has now pumped in surely his most impressive single-lap performance of the season, if not ever.
Being half a second clear of Max Verstappen and six tenths ahead of Norris in the same car is therefore the peak of an already very strong body of work at Spa. And it already looked likely in practice, too, when Piastri was half a second quicker in FP1 - even if that came with the boost of a tow. So this was not simply Norris being quicker but underachieving when it counted.
The job's not done, and even a sprint win will count for little if Piastri does not follow it up in the qualifying session that matters and then the grand prix on Sunday.
But after being clearly unhappy with what he felt was a robbed victory at the last race at Silverstone, Piastri's fired up and in the zone here - which has brought the very best out of him. - Scott Mitchell-Malm
Loser - Lewis Hamilton (18th)
Lewis Hamilton wasn't expecting Ferrari's Belgian GP upgrade to be transformative, but he'd have been hoping for a better debut than 18th in qualifying via two incidents.
A high-speed snap running through Stavelot cost him time on his first run and left him in the drop zone, before a bizarre spin into the Bus Stop chicane.
It remains to be seen whether that was simply driver error or some kind of problem aboard his SF-25 - Hamilton said it was "the first time I think in my career" that he'd had such an incident.
Whatever the cause, it has effectively reduced Hamilton's sprint race to a test session and brought a solid one-lap run of five consecutive top fives to an end. - Josh Suttill
Winner - Max Verstappen (2nd)
Being almost half a second from pole didn't make Verstappen happy but splitting the McLarens did.
"Being P2 between them is already a good result for us, and I do think we maximised that," said Max. "I enjoyed it out there."
There might also be a glimmer of hope in the performance of Red Bull's upgrades. Its Spa package includes revisions to the front wing, sidepod inlet, engine cover and front suspension/rear corner details.
Red Bull is still pushing aggressively with the development of its 2025 F1 car, as it bids to keep Verstappen in the title fight. The championship is still in Red Bull motorsport advisor Helmut Marko's sights even if Verstappen himself keeps talking it down.
Updating the car as often as Red Bull has might also have something to do with just trying to convince Verstappen it is doing everything it can to improve and crucially has the capacity to do so.
After another opportunistic pole at Silverstone, Verstappen is still in the mix track-to-track. It bodes well as Red Bull and Verstappen try to end a very underwhelming run of results - even if there's still clearly an overall deficit, especially here. - SMM
Loser - Aston Martin (14th & 15th)
Lance Stroll was eighth fastest in practice at Spa, Fernando Alonso was ninth. A raft of updates, some initially planned to be just test items, seemed to prove quite effective.
Aston Martin looked like it was in a good place for the sprint qualifying session. That continued in SQ1, with everyone on hard tyres - Alonso was fourth and Stroll was seventh.
But it unravelled in the next segment, with the two Aston Martins slowest of all in SQ2. Alonso, the best of the two in 14th, was three tenths from making the top 10. Stroll was four tenths adrift of his team-mate.
What went wrong? Stroll said it was "just more challenging with snaps" and feared there was potentially a bit of damage from running off in SQ1. Alonso reckoned Aston Martin just hit its limit sooner, and others gained more in the second session.
"Our best session is always Q1," he said. - SMM
Winner - Carlos Sainz (6th)
Carlos Sainz may have been pretty chuffed to end up sixth on the grid for the sprint, but he admitted that Williams was still making life difficult for itself.
While the pace of its car has never really been a problem this year, niggling issues have been – whether it's recent cooling problems for Alex Albon or brake issues for Sainz himself.
Spa looked to offer no reset from the recent frustrating run, as Sainz was forced to limp back to the pits on his first out-lap in practice thanks to a fuel system issue that triggered some failsafe modes.
After losing half of the session while getting the problem fixed, costing him valuable time to learn about new upgrades, Sainz was happy with the "big turnaround" Williams had undertaken to not only get him through to SQ3 but also to end up sixth.
It proved a feeling he has that when the team is not battling a problem it is actually pretty good.
"When everything is more or less under control, the pace is there, and the good lap times are there," he said. - JN
Loser - Alex Albon (16th)
While Sainz put the upgraded Williams on the third row, team-mate Alex Albon was eliminated in SQ1 after lapping 0.436s slower.
That was partly a consequence of Hamilton's spin at the chicane as Albon caught a brief yellow flag that was just about to clear, which was unfortunate as others were able to improve having missed it, but he was far more frustrated by an engine problem that cost him in sectors one and three.
"We have an engine issue on our car," said Albon. "We had it in FP1 and then we thought we'd fixed it for FP2 [sprint qualifying] and we didn't. We're losing a lot of laptime down the straights, so we need to fix it. Of course, the Lewis thing maybe could've, would've [cost an SQ2 place] but I was on the same laptime [as the first attempt]."
It was clear Albon was disappointed that not enough had been done to find the problem.
After his first flying lap, he lamented "it feels the same", leading to a question about whether there was anything that could be done with sensor settings to improve matters. After finishing his second lap, he said over the radio "to be honest with you, I don't think we tried hard enough to find the problem".
Speaking after the session, he confirmed "it's a fundamental issue, it will either be a PU change, or something". - Edd Straw
Winner - Haas (5th & 7th)
Haas team boss Ayao Komatsu was beating himself up after his team's biggest missed opportunity of 2025 three weeks ago at the British GP.
While rival Sauber scooped a podium, Haas walked away from Silverstone point-less despite its upgraded VF-25 likely being the class of the midfield that weekend.
That squandering was partly because of Ollie Bearman's hefty 10-place grid penalty for his FP3 pit entry crash, but Komatsu was particularly disappointed with his own and the team's execution on Sunday.
"Looking at it, the thing that pissed me off is it's not the first time it happened," Komatsu said on Thursday at Spa.
He referenced his frustration that he'd repeated an error that cost the team points earlier this year and even as far back as the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix - where it gambled with Mick Schumacher for a better result when already in a good position, only to then walk away with nothing.
Komatsu says he potentially puts too much pressure on the team and drivers in those moments when there's a big result for the taking.
He thinks it would be better if he treated it like any other race, simply picking the best strategy possible, regardless of whether they're fighting for third or 10th.
Saturday's sprint probably won't be much of a test of that, given there's no mandatory pitstop.
But fifth and seventh - the first time the team has two cars inside the top 10 in qualifying this season - suggests it's going to have a good chance to atone for the missed 2025 chances this weekend. - JS
Loser - Franco Colapinto (19th)
Franco Colapinto well understands the limitations of the Alpine – with its power unit deficit and handling characteristics in high-speed corners never likely to make it much fun for him at Spa-Francorchamps.
But with team-mate Pierre Gasly yet again delivering an impressive performance to get through to SQ3, Colapinto cannot just blame the car for another disappointing outing.
The Argentinean still lacks confidence to extract the full potential in qualifying – and things were not helped by him not nailing a good balance in the sole practice session before sprint qualifying.
In the end, he had nothing else to give as he ended up 19th on the grid for Saturday's main event – admitting that he is still not yet at one with his car.
"Yeah, it was tricky," he said. "A lot of people going into the gravel. It was not really a smooth session, and very short, so tricky to put a lap together. I'm still trying to fight with the car and finding new things." - JN
Loser - Nico Hulkenberg (17th)
Nico Hulkenberg went from Silverstone hero to Spa zero by falling in SQ1. A so-so first lap, four tenths slower than Sauber team-mate Gabriel Bortoleto (who made SQ3) partly thanks to being a little too conservative into Les Combes, meant he always needed to improve on his second run.
However, after a brief return to the garage he was frustrated by the amount of backing up ahead of him in the pitlane queue, meaning he was warned "it's going to be tight" in terms of time when he joined the track.
With so many cars on track, he had to wait before launching the lap, but the decision to pass Liam Lawson at the final chicane just as the near-stationary Racing Bulls driver launched his lap forced him to back off again. That meant a compromised start to the lap, running too close to Hadjar ahead, no improvement, and elimination.
As he put it, "not great, a bit messy".
But there was some joy for Sauber because Bortoleto's first lap was good enough to put him through, with a storming lap in SQ2 putting him fifth. He couldn't repeat that pace in SQ3, ending up 10th. - ES
