{"id":494636,"date":"2025-07-26T06:42:02","date_gmt":"2025-07-26T10:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/?post_type=news&#038;p=494636"},"modified":"2025-07-26T06:43:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T10:43:12","slug":"verstappen-upsets-both-mclarens-to-win-belgium-sprint-race","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/news\/verstappen-upsets-both-mclarens-to-win-belgium-sprint-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Verstappen upsets both McLarens to win Belgium Sprint race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Max Verstappen claimed victory in the Sprint race at the Belgian Grand Prix after overtaking Oscar Piastri at the start and withstanding pressure from the McLaren driver throughout the race at Spa-Francorchamps.<\/p>\n<p>Starting second on the grid, Verstappen made a clinical move into the lead on the opening lap, slipping past Piastri into La Source.<\/p>\n<p>From there, the reigning world champion held firm, managing the pace while keeping the hard-charging Australian at bay.<\/p>\n<p>Behind them, Lando Norris made up ground after being briefly demoted by Ferrari\u2019s Charles Leclerc early on.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Here comes Max Verstappen!<\/p>\n<p>The moment the Red Bull driver took the lead \ud83c\udfa5<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/F1Sprint?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#F1Sprint<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/BelgianGP?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">#BelgianGP<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/UrxSyhXrS4\" target=\"_blank\">pic.twitter.com\/UrxSyhXrS4<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Formula 1 (@F1) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/F1\/status\/1949049764189712625?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">July 26, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The McLaren driver reclaimed third place using DRS on Lap 4, securing the final spot on the podium. Leclerc, despite a strong start, had to settle for fourth.<\/p>\n<p>Further back, Haas continued its impressive weekend as Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman held onto their fifth and seventh starting positions. Sandwiched between them was Carlos Sainz, delivering another steady performance in the Williams.<\/p>\n<p>Pierre Gasly was unable to participate properly after encountering car troubles at the start, opening the door for Racing Bulls\u2019 Isack Hadjar to claim eighth place and a valuable point in the standings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Max Verstappen claimed victory in the Sprint race at the Belgian Grand Prix after overtaking Oscar Piastri at the start and withstanding pressure [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":137,"featured_media":494637,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"tags":[23203,17288,17289],"news_category":[16921,16715,14084],"gn_keywords":[23204,26193,17971,17900],"acf":{"news_source":"","link_picture":"","announce":"The World champion made decisive move on opening lap to take the lead and control the pace until the end","video":["video"]},"rank_math_focus_keyword":"","rank_math_description":"","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_robots":"","rank_math_canonical_url":"","rank_math_facebook_title":"","rank_math_facebook_description":"","rank_math_facebook_image":"","rank_math_twitter_title":"","rank_math_twitter_description":"","rank_math_twitter_image":"","rank_math_snippet_shortcode":"","rank_math_primary_category":"","rankmath_seo":{"focus_keyword":"","description":"","title":"","canonical_url":"","robots":"","facebook":{"title":"","description":"","image":""},"twitter":{"title":"","description":"","image":""}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/494636"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/137"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494636"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/494636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":494640,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/494636\/revisions\/494640"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494636"},{"taxonomy":"news_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news_category?post=494636"},{"taxonomy":"gn_keywords","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/7sport.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/gn_keywords?post=494636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}