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Lap 42/44: It’s 3.6sec between Norris and leader Piastri.
Updated at 11.41 EDT
Lap 41/44: Norris has Piastri in his sights. Will Piastri’s tyre gamble blow up in his face at the very last? The gap is 3.8sec.
Updated at 11.41 EDT
Lap 41/44: The gap is 4sec!
And it edges under 4sec now!
Updated at 11.40 EDT
Lap 41/44: “My goodness … it is going to be close, isn’t it?” says Brundle.
Lap 40/44: Norris is behind the backmarker Hadjar.
“He’s lost a lap of gain here,” says Brundle of Norris trying to get past the Racing Bulls.
Updated at 11.39 EDT
Lap 40/44: Now 4.7sec between Piastri and Norris! Are Piastri’s tyres going from bad to worse? It seems so.
Hadjar, Sainz and Norris are now on hard tyres. The first two are 20th and 18th respectively, mind you.
Oscar Piastri is being reeled in by his teammate. Photograph: Mark Sutton/Formula 1/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 11.41 EDT
Lap 39/44: Piastri leads Norris by 5.143sec.
Lap 39/44: Leclerc seems to have a bit of a pop at his team for the information coming at him over the radio, regarding the gap to Verstappen behind him.
Updated at 11.36 EDT
Lap 39/44: Norris is within 5.5sec now!
Lap 38/44: Ted Kravitz says there are more rain clouds looming. That could spice things up.
Lap 37/44: Hamilton is more than a second behind Albon. Even the great British driver, who embarked on a thrilling charge early on, has had the wind taken out of his sails.
Lap 36/44: This really threatened to be a fascinating race for a while there, but nothing much of note has happened for a while now, and it looks like Piastri is going to win quite comfortably.
“He probably should be within five seconds now,” Brundle says of Norris’s attempt to catch his teammate Piastri. “But he isn’t.”
Updated at 11.32 EDT
Lap 35/44:
Piastri
Norris +7.5sec
Leclerc +18sec
Verstappen +21sec
Russell +31sec
Albon +35sec
Hamilton
Lawson
Bortoleto
Gasly
Tsunoda
Bearman
Stroll
Hulkenberg
Ocon
Antonelli
Alonso
Sainz
Colapinto
Hadjar
Lap 34/44: So the question is, clearly, can Piastri get enough pace out of these intermediate tyres in the next 10 laps, to hold off a charging Norris?
If I was a betting man I’d say yes, he can. But we may yet see drama.
Updated at 11.28 EDT
Lap 33/44: Norris narrows the gap a little further to Piastri, it’s 7.3sec now.
Lap 33/44: Hamilton is now right on Albon’s tail … He’s just 0.3sec behind.
Lap 33/44: Piastri leads his teammate Norris by 7.7sec.
Lap 32/44: I remain sympathetic to the race director regarding the decision taken to delay the start. It was too dangerous. However, Brundle did make the point that they probably could have started 15min sooner than they did after the rain. And that’s probably a fair point too.
Updated at 11.25 EDT
Lap 31/44: “Looking at Lewis’s position shows how the race has been completely neutralised by starting so late,” emails Reinoud. “Pitting now would put him in a DRS train outside the top 10 – no one will take that risk, so no one is pushing for overtakes on track.
“If we’d started 15-30min earlier we’d have had more actual racing on inters, probably a pit stop for a second set of inters, and a flat-out sprint on slicks for the last 15 laps. Oh well, at least Spa is a beautiful track to look at for the next 25 minutes or so.”
Lap 30/44: Things have stabilised after the rain and all those pitstops earlier in the race. We’ll have a full points race unless something dramatic happens.
Norris narrows the gap to Piastri to 8.3sec, but it feels like Piastri is in a good rhythm and is feeling confident of staying out for another 14 laps to claim the victory.
Updated at 11.21 EDT
Lap 29/44:
Top 10:
Piastri
Norris +8.6sec
Leclerc +9.2sec
Verstappen +2.3sec
Russell +6sec
Albon +3sec
Hamilton +1.2sec
Lawson +11sec
Bortoleto +1.6sec
Hulkenberg +5sec
Updated at 11.19 EDT
Lap 28/44: Sainz, in 19th place in the Williams, gets a final warning for track limits.
Lap 27/44: Piastri’s lead grows to 9.2sec after, I think, a mistake by Norris. Antonelli takes Alonso and moves into 14th place.
Updated at 11.16 EDT
Lap 26/44: Hadjar, in last place, has gone on to hard tyres. He and Norris are the two with them, everyone else has intermediates.
Lap 26/44: The most significant time gap, between leader Piastri and second-placed Norris, stands at 7.8sec.
Hamilton is 1.9sec down on Albon in sixth.
Lap 24/44: During the Tour de France stage the other day, Luke Rowe was saying that wet-dry conditions are the most dangerous for riders, because the amount of grip in a corner on a descent can fluctuate wildly.
These driving conditions aren’t super dangerous for the drivers, at least not anymore, but it does make the tyre strategy very interesting.
Lap 24/44: The gap between Norris and Piastri holds at 8.3sec.
Leclerc, in third, is another 8sec behind Norris.
Piastri produces the fastest lap of the race.
Updated at 11.10 EDT
Lap 23/44: Piastri leads Norris by 8.3sec.
Lap 23/44: “How is it his call?” asks Ted Kravitz of the Piastri tyre conundrum. “These teams have got strategy super computers that put Deep Blue to shame.”
Deep Blue being a chess super computer.
Updated at 11.09 EDT
Lap 22/44: “No one knows if the hard compound tyres will go to the end, because they haven’t been running them all weekend,” points out Brundle on commentary. “In theory they should.”
Lap 22/44: “It’s your call if we do another pitstop or try to get to the end,” Piastri is told over the radio. “At the moment, we try to get to the end.”
Lap 21/44:
Piastri
Norris +8.1sec
Leclerc +15sec
Verstappen
Russell
Albon
Hamilton
Lawson
Bortoleto
Hulkenberg
Gasly
Bearman
Alonso
Colapinto
Antonelli
Stroll
Sainz
Hadjar
Ocon
Updated at 11.04 EDT
Lap 19/44: Piastri leads Norris by 8.2sec. Can Norris continue to reduce his teammate’s deficit?
Oscar Piastri in action. Photograph: Simon Wohlfahrt/AFP/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 11.07 EDT
Lap 19/44: Hamilton’s momentum has slowed slightly. He was absolutely flying for a while there but Albon is now holding him at bay from sixth position.
Lap 18/44: Norris is the only driver in the race with hard compound tyres on. However, he is eating into Piastri’s lead slightly. The gap is 8.7sec now.
Lap 17/44: Hamilton is right on the tail of Albon, in sixth, 0.8sec behind.
On team radio, McLaren say they are going to aim for both cars to make it to the end without another stop.
Updated at 10.58 EDT
Lap 16/44: The track is now drying out nicely. Piastri leads Norris by 9sec.
Piastri’s overtake of Norris, on the first lap raced in anger, is shaping up to be decisive.
Updated at 10.57 EDT
Lap 16/44: Piastri, at the front, leads Norris by 8.8sec.
Hamilton’s Ferrari seems to be the fastest car on the track.
Updated at 10.55 EDT
Lap 15/44: Hamilton nabbed six places with that early stop.
He said his mistake in qualifying was “unacceptable” but it appears to have motivated him all the more.
Updated at 10.55 EDT
Lap 15/44:
Top 10:
Piastri
Norris +9sec
Leclerc +15sec
Verstappen +16sec
Russell +17sec
Albon
Hamilton
Lawson
Hulkenberg
Bortoleto
Updated at 10.53 EDT
Lap 14/44: Hamilton is up to seventh! The early stop for slick tyres seems to have worked out beautifully.
Lewis Hamilton moves up to seventh. Photograph: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty ImagesShare
Updated at 10.55 EDT
Lap 14/44: Norris pits! Piastri leads him by 6.6sec. Leclerc is a further 16sec back.
Lap 13/44: Piastri is 2.4sec faster than Norris, according to commentary.
Lap 13/44: There are plenty of cars coming in for slick tyres now. No fewer than 10 cars now on slicks, with four more about to change.
Lap 12/44: Piastri pits! He’s gone on to intermediates.
DRS has now been enabled.
Updated at 10.49 EDT
Lap 11/44: Hamilton pits and goes on to slick tyres. He is back down to 17th as a result.
“That is going to give everybody a lot of good information,” says Brundle on commentary of Hamilton’s new tyres.
Updated at 10.48 EDT
Lap 11/44: Hamilton is racing like a man possessed. This is some great entertainment for the fans who had to wait during that rain delay.
Verstappen has a look, but can’t get past Leclerc on the straight after Eau Rouge.
Updated at 10.47 EDT
Lap 10/44:
Top 10:
Piastri
Norris
Leclerc
Verstappen
Russell
Albon
Tsunoda
Hadjar
Lawson
Bortoleto
Lap 10/44: Hamilton takes Gasly and is up to 13th. Could he fight his way into contention?
Lap 9/44:
Top five:
Piastri
Norris
Leclerc
Verstappen
Russell
Lap 9/44: Norris trails the race leader, Piastri, by 1.4sec.
Hamilton takes another place! He’s past Hulkenberg. This is great racing from the seven-times world champion. He is up to 14th, having overtaken three cars in the space of one lap.
Updated at 10.41 EDT
Lap 8/44: Hamilton up to 15th! He edges past the Alpine of Colapinto. This is a brilliant charge by the Ferrari driver.
Updated at 10.40 EDT
Lap 7/44: “If it’s not going to rain again, they will need dry tyres soon,” says Brundle. Tyre strategy is going to be key.
Hamilton moves up to 16th after a good move against Sainz.
Lap 7/44: Now a suggestion that Piastri may have a battery issue, too? Anyway, second-placed Norris is 1sec down, then Leclerc is 2.3sec behind Norris.
Updated at 10.38 EDT