Alex Jacques pinpoints the ‘enormous’ Lando Norris factor fans didn’t consider in his Oscar Piastri battle at Spa

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McLaren were once again in a league of their own in 2025 as they cruised to another 1-2 finish. However, this time, it was Oscar Piastri who won the internal battle.

F1 commentator Alex Jacques was speaking exclusively to F1 Oversteer after the Belgian Grand Prix about the battle between the McLarens, as Lando Norris looked to carry the momentum into Spa after wins at Spielberg and Silverstone, and did so by claiming his fourth pole position of 2025.

But teammate Piastri was keen to re-establish his advantage. The Aussie went six tenths clear of Norris in Sprint qualifying, before Max Verstappen got the better of him in the Sprint on Saturday.

After a lengthy delay to the Grand Prix due to torrential rain, it did not take long for Piastri to get past his McLaren teammate when racing finally got underway. The Aussie got the overtake done on the Kemmel straight and was out of sight for the remainder of the race.

Andrea Stella felt Norris made a mistake at the restart as he did not build enough of a gap to defend against Piastri. The 25-year-old locked up several times at turn one while trying to catch his teammate, thus sealing second place.

F1 fans think Piastri will win the title after seeing the small errors Norris made throughout the race at Spa. But Jacques thinks there was one ‘enormous’ factor that fans did not take into account.

Alex Jacques says fans didn’t consider Lando Norris’ ‘enormous’ crash at Spa in 2021 in Oscar Piastri battle in 2025

Spa-Francorchamps is widely known as one of the most dangerous tracks on the F1 calendar, especially in wet weather conditions. Norris can attest to this after he suffered a massive crash at Eau Rouge in 2021, which resulted in him needing hospital treatment.

Jacques told F1 Oversteer that people need to bear that in mind with Norris’ battle with Piastri last weekend, as it is incredibly difficult to make up ground in the rain at Spa, especially after a previous accident like that.

“When it’s really tight battle between just two drivers in the same team, everything gets amplified, right? So, a win like that is so significant, because you know it’s at this stage turned zero-sum,” he said.

“You can never count Max Verstappen out, and you know he’s going to score another amazing pole position at some point before the season’s done, but in terms of the race win, that McLaren is the class of the field; we’ve known that for a while.

“But it’s gone from being at the start of the year, possibly defeatable, like we saw in Japan, like we saw in Canada. And obviously, in the recent months, that’s completely faded away. So it’s going to be Lando or Oscar if things run like a normal Grand Prix.

“And Oscar started the racing action like that, didn’t he? He started with a huge amount of intent. One thing that everyone’s got to bear in mind is that Lando Norris in the wet has had an enormous accident at the defining corner of a Belgian Grand Prix, and that is Eau Rouge into Raidillon.

“In the wet there in 2021, he was rapid, but found the wall so heavily, he had to go to and have a hospital check-up. That’s how heavy his impact was. There are no small accidents at that corner, right?

“In the same conditions, knowing that the race leader is always vulnerable, and everyone in the paddock beforehand is talking about the driver can make the difference here, Oscar, went maximum attack, Lando, with the caution of a race leader, and that’s the whole race there and then.

“Once you’ve lost track position around Spa in the modern era and it dries out, it’s an incredibly difficult lead to get back.”

READ MORE: McLaren driver Lando Norris’ life outside F1 from parents to celebration

Alex Jacques believes the 2026 F1 regulations will ‘bring Spa back’

The 2025 Belgian GP was not the most entertaining of affairs by any means. The race saw little overtakes across the field, with Lewis Hamilton being the only one to make up notable ground, going from the pit lane to P7.

The dirty air created by this current generation of cars has been an issue, especially at circuits like Spa. But with the 2026 F1 regulations set to transform the sport, Jacques hopes these changes will bring back closer racing to the iconic track.

He added: “I think the new regulation set will bring Spa back. We’re in the final year of the regulations and the dirty air off the back of the cars. We saw it last year when much faster car packages were unable to get by, it’s even more extreme this year. So that loss of track position was absolutely everything.

“But I’m hopeful that the new regulations in 2026 will mean that it’s not as extreme, because speaking to many senior people in the paddock over the course of the weekend, they’re staggered by how hard it’s become to overtake at Spa, and there is hope in the 2026 regulations.

“It’s a massive outlier, right? It’s a classic Formula 1 circuit, Formula 1 drivers love racing around it, fans love to go to that place. You should be able to overtake.

“When the greatest ever Formula 1 overtake is at that circuit, this regulation set has just not suited it, though, so there’s hope in 2026.”