{"id":12532,"date":"2025-07-27T12:18:32","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T12:18:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=12532"},"modified":"2025-07-27T12:18:32","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T12:18:32","slug":"belgian-grand-prix-formula-one-updates-from-spa-live-formula-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/?p=12532","title":{"rendered":"Belgian Grand Prix: Formula One updates from Spa \u2013 live | Formula One"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/span>Giles Richards<\/span><\/p>\n

Amid a turbulent period for Red Bull<\/strong>, their new team principal, Laurent Mekies, is bearing the responsibility and the scrutiny, for the moment at least, with a smile.<\/p>\n

After two weeks in charge since the dismissal of Christian Horner, Mekies and Red Bull are adjusting to a new era with a business as usual attitude even as the circumstances suggest it can be anything but, before this weekend\u2019s Belgian Grand Prix.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe timing is bloody bizarre<\/strong>,\u201d the pundit Martin Brundle says on Sky Sports of Horner\u2019s departure. \u201cYou might have thought it was something to do in the close season. But it is what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was losing internal support,\u201d claims Nico Rosberg. \u201cKey people were leaving \u2026 so they decided to pull the trigger.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVerstappen will definitely stay next year,\u201d says Naomi Schiff. \u201cWhile Red Bull racing is a successful team, Red Bull [the drink] is at the core of it. This is their biggest marketing activity \u2026 they have clearly gone backwards, they need to go forwards, the whole team needs to rebuild, and rebuild their image.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Updated at\u00a008.08 EDT<\/p>\n

Preamble<\/h2>\n

The buildup to the Belgian grand prix has been dominated by Christian Horner\u2019s recent departure from Red Bull, and that hasn\u2019t changed this weekend: although an actual grand prix will shift collective focus to the sport rather than off-track politics.<\/p>\n

Lando Norris \u2013 having a mixed season to say the least \u2013 grabbed pole position for McLaren yesterday while Ferrari\u2019s Lewis Hamilton, who has won five times at Spa in his illustrious career, could only manage 16th on the grid after what he termed an \u201cunacceptable\u201d error. \u201cDefinitely a weekend to forget,\u201d said the seven-times world champion. \u201cI\u2019ve got to look internally and apologise to the team.\u201d Norris\u2019s pole followed up victory at the British grand prix earlier this month when his teammate, Oscar Piastri, claimed he was unfairly denied by a penalty for braking erratically during a safety-car restart.<\/p>\n

Max Verstappen of Red Bull, having won the earlier sprint race, took fourth on the grid while Piastri is second in a McLaren one-two. Charles Leclerc, Hamilton\u2019s Ferrari teammate, starts third. There should be plenty of intrigue, not least in judging how Laurent Mekies, Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda\u2019s new team principal, begins his quest to fill Horner\u2019s shoes.<\/p>\n

Lights out: 2pm UK time<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Key events Show key events only Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature Giles Richards Amid a turbulent period for Red Bull, their new team principal, Laurent Mekies, is bearing the responsibility and the scrutiny, for the moment at least, with a smile. After two weeks in charge since the dismissal of Christian Horner,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12533,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[6161,3953,4858,132,6162,6163,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-12532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-belgian","9":"tag-formula","10":"tag-grand","11":"tag-live","12":"tag-prix","13":"tag-spa","14":"tag-updates"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}