Mercedes' George Russell has taken victory at the Belgian Grand Prix after a gutsy late switch to a single stop strategy. Lewis Hamilton finished a very close second while McLaren's Oscar Piastri ended up third, less than a second behind the Mercedes duo.
I guess McLaren should still have the upper hand, but if Norris has a slower first half of the race again, him and Verstappen could meet on track fairly quickly. Maybe Piastri could benefit from that.
It's a hard race to predict. People are overestimating how easy it will be to pass. Max doesn't even have the best car let alone a car like the previous two races at Spa, so will lose time in traffic, in DRS trains. DRS zone is shorter as well. He'll be 10 seconds off the lead by lap 4. Same goes for McLaren. I expect a SC or VSC at some point just for a minor spin with all these gravel traps, so this might bring Max into play. Merc had decent race pace.
it may not be so much about the tire itself, but more the car/setup-tire combination. Last year for example, the Williams was absolutely flying on the Softs but "eating" the mediums within a couple of laps.
Afterwards, the team suspected some potential technical issues, but to me it looked more like the low-downforce setup just needed the additional grip from the softer compounds. On the harder ones, they started to slight around quickly and thereby destroyed the tires immediately.
I'm guessing the chat is really quiet because even though there's gaps forming between drivers, many of them are very much still in it if there's a late SC/VSC. It's poised beautifully, what will lady luck do?