Belgian Grand Prix talking points: Red Bull without Christian Horner as Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri title battle resumes
Formula 1 is back after a mini break as the second half of the 2025 season begins with the Belgian Grand Prix; watch every session of the Sprint weekend in Belgium, starting with Practice at 11.30am and Sprint Qualifying at 3.30pm on Friday - live on Sky Sports F1
Thursday 24 July 2025 07:15, UK
The 2025 Formula 1 season resumes with a Sprint weekend at the iconic Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium.
Sky Sports F1 takes a look at the key talking points as the second half of the season begins, following some big news since the last race at Silverstone.
Red Bull's first F1 race without Horner
That big news after the British Grand Prix was the sacking of Christian Horner after over 20 years in charge of Red Bull, who have chosen Laurent Mekies as his successor.
It will be Red Bull's first-ever race weekend without Horner as team principal and marks the start of a new era.
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There's no doubt Thursday's media day will be largely dominated by Horner's removal, with plenty of attention on what Max Verstappen, Yuki Tsunoda, Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson make of the decision.
Horner says he was given no reason for his sacking, and one theory is Verstappen's future may have played a role. Will we get any clues about that this week from the Dutchman? New boss Mekies will also address the world's media on Friday afternoon, when he will surely be questioned about the timing of Horner's sacking, too.
On the track, Red Bull continue to lack outright performance compared to McLaren which is likely the factor Verstappen cares about most when it comes to his decision to stay with the team, or not.
Toto Wolff revealed last month that he is in talks with Verstappen's camp, which includes Max's father Jos Verstappen and manager Raymond Vermeulen, with Mercedes drivers George Russell and Kimi Antonelli out of contract after this year.
Verstappen has fallen to 69 points behind championship leader Oscar Piastri but Red Bull found a set-up that gave the four-time world champion pole position last time out at Silverstone.
Red Bull gave their star driver a low downforce set-up which Verstappen brilliantly handled, only for it to not pay off in the rain on race day as he struggled to keep his car pointing in the right direction.
Mixed conditions are predicted all week at Spa-Francorchamps, which is never easy to read in terms of the weather, but if it is dry we will see if Red Bull go for a high top speed set-up again, and whether it works in race trim.
Piastri, Norris title battle resumes
Momentum is on Lando Norris' side after winning consecutive races in the same season for the first time in his F1 career to trail Piastri by just eight points.
Belgium will host the fourth Sprint weekend of the season, so there are extra points available with eight up for grabs for the winner of Saturday's Sprint, before the usual 25 points for the winner of Sunday's race.
It means Norris could re-take the championship lead, having lost it following the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix in April, with a strong weekend on another track he's gone well at in the past compared to his team-mates.
Since the Canadian Grand Prix last month, Norris and Piastri have gone different ways with the car, specifically the suspension. Norris has been using the new suspension but Piastri has decided, so far, to stick with the older version.
Norris was candid that he did not have the same confidence with this year's McLaren compared to the end of last season, but the updated suspension appears to have got him back on track after showing great speed in Montreal, where an underperformance in qualifying and a crash with his team-mate in the race stopped him finishing ahead of Piastri. Norris then won in Austria and Great Britain.
"It could be that it's helping me, and when I say helping, it's helping me by hundredths, thousandths, I don't know. It's impossible to numerically put a number on it," said Norris.
"It's something the team believed might give me more feeling, and I just roll with that. I believe. My faith in the team and my belief in them thinking this might help. Not a guarantee, but it might. And that's it. Yes, I won two races since [and] I was real quick in Canada.
"I'm not going to say it's down to that, obviously. I want to put more of it down to my hard work, my work I've been doing away from the track, with my team, with many people that I have around me. I put it way more down to that than some alterations on the suspension."
There has been over two weeks since the last race at Silverstone, so Piastri and his engineers have been able to look at the data and work in the factory to see if they want to follow Norris with the new suspension.
If the Australian chooses to still stick with the old specification this weekend in Belgium, he may keep it until the end of the season, and that could be a championship-defining decision.
Ferrari lead final upgrade charge
Two races ago, Ferrari brought a new floor to the Austrian Grand Prix and they immediately had their best race result with third for Charles Leclerc and fourth for Lewis Hamilton.
They appeared to be at the sharp end again at Silverstone, but both drivers were unable to deliver when it mattered most in qualifying and had a torrid Sunday in the rain.
During the mini-break, Hamilton and Leclerc have conducted a filming day at Mugello in Italy where they tested a new rear suspension.
Per rules, they had to use non-race weekend tyres but the data they gathered over the 200km of track time has given them the green light to bring it to Spa-Francorchamps.
The new suspension is expected to offer Ferrari a bigger operating window, so both drivers can move away from running extreme car set-ups and also get the car lower to the ground.
It is likely the last major upgrade for Ferrari before they put full focus on 2026 and the new technical regulations, so it will be a crucial weekend for the Scuderia and their hopes of snatching a win or two in the remaining rounds.
Mercedes and Red Bull are also expected to bring minor updates to Belgium, with McLaren unsure on whether they will run the new floor which was tested in first practice at Silverstone, but that they then took off the car for the remainder of the weekend.
Unusual tyre allocation on a Sprint weekend
The final big talking point is about tyres. F1 tyre supplier Pirelli bring three compounds from their range of C1, C2, C3, C4 and C5 tyres.
For the first time in over three years, Pirelli have not brought consecutive compounds to an event as they have chosen the C1 as the hard tyre, then the C3 as the medium and the C4 as the soft.
Pirelli say: "According to the simulations, this trio should make a two-stop strategy even more competitive in Sunday's race, while adding a greater degree of uncertainty to tyre management over the course of the weekend, especially as it is a Sprint event, with just one hour of free practice and a different dry tyre allocation."
The tyre allocation they refer to is that there are only 12 sets of tyres to use over the Sprint weekend, rather than the 13 sets for a conventional event, with just six softs, four mediums and two hards.
Put simply, given you need to use new mediums in SQ1 and SQ2 in Sprint Qualifying, there will be a lot of unknowns for the teams as they will use tyres in competitive sessions without having much data due to the tyre limits and one practice session.
Whether you like tyre talk or not, this is going be a crucial factor when considering who will be competitive at Spa-Francorchamps, with showers forecast across Friday, Saturday and Sunday for good measure.
Sky Sports F1's live Belgian GP schedule
Thursday July 24
1pm: Drivers' Press Conference
Friday July 25
7.55am: F3 Practice
9.05am: F2 Practice
11am: Belgian GP Practice One (session starts at 11.30am)
12.55pm: F3 Qualifying
1.50pm: F2 Qualifying
3pm: Belgian GP Sprint Qualifying (session starts at 3.30pm)
Saturday July 26
8.10am: F3 Sprint
10am: Belgian GP Sprint (lights out at 11am)
12.20pm: Ted's Sprint Notebook
12.40pm: F2 Sprint
2pm: Belgian GP Qualifying (session starts at 3pm)
5pm: Ted's Qualifying Notebook
Sunday July 27
7.25am: F3 Feature Race
8.55am: F2 Feature Race
10.40am: Porsche Supercup Race
12.30pm: Grand Prix Sunday: Belgian GP build-up*
2pm: THE BELGIAN GRAND PRIX*
4pm: Chequered flag: Belgian GP reaction*
5pm: Ted's Notebook
*also live on Sky Sports Main Event
The 2025 Formula 1 season resumes this weekend with the Belgian Grand Prix as the Sprint format returns, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream Sky Sports with NOW - no contract, cancel anytime.
