Spanish
Sports writing (EFE).- Australian Oscar Piastri (McLaren), leader of the Formula One World Championship, will start first this Saturday in the sprint race of the Belgian Grand Prix, the thirteenth of the year, which is held at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
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Spaniards Carlos Sainz (Williams) and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin), double world champion, will start sixth and fourteenth, respectively; and the Argentinian Franco Colapinto (Alpine), who was eliminated in the first round, nineteenth. Piastri will take the first position on the grid for the sprint race after dominating qualifying this Friday, in whose decisive third round (SQ3) he covered, with the mandatory soft compound tire, the 7,004 meters of the legendary track of the Ardennes - the longest in the championship - in one minute, 40 seconds and 510 milliseconds. The quadruple world champion, Dutch Max Verstappen (Red Bull), finished 417 thousandths behind; and the other McLaren, that of the English Lando Norris -second in the World Championship, eight points behind his teammate-, who will start third in the sprint, was 618 behind. From the second row, next to Norris - who comes from winning the last two races, in Austria and Silverstone (Great Britain) - starts the Monegasque Charles Leclerc (Ferrari), who was fourth. Behind them will be Frenchman Esteban Ocon (Haas) - fifth this Saturday - and Sainz, on the third row of the grid for a race that will award points to the top eight finishers: eight to the winner, seven to the second and six to the third; and so on successively to the eighth, who will take one. The Argentinian Franco Colapinto (Alpine), eliminated in the first round, will start nineteenth and penultimate, in a test that the Englishman Oliver Bearman (Haas) will face seventh, next to the Frenchman Pierre Gasly -teammate of the boanerense- and from the fourth row. Two rookies, Frenchman Isack Hadjar (RB) and Brazilian Gabriel Bortoleto (Kick Sauber) - who finished ninth and tenth in Friday's timed session - will start from the fifth row.
