Academy Report: Battling the Belgian Weather

Stop-start rain affected Formula 1's support series over the 2025 Belgian GP weekend, with Formula 2 and Formula 3 having to work around the changeable weather.

Delayed Qualifying and a cancelled race threw the Williams Racing Driver Academy's timetable off, but the trip to Spa-Francorchamps still yielded two more podiums.

Here's how Luke Browning, Victor Martins, and Alessandro Giusti handled their trip to the Ardennes.

Luke's second successive P12 qualification meant he had his work cut out to score points in the races and keep his championship hopes alive.

That task looked to get more challenging after a Turn 1 incident at the start of the Sprint Race that immediately ended Luke's Saturday.

Sandwiched between Richard Verschoor and Jak Crawford, Luke was left with nowhere to go, ending the reverse grid race in the La Source gravel.

Things turned around considerably on Sunday, though, even with the inclement weather forcing the Feature Race to run under the Safety Car before getting underway.

Luke wasted no time in attacking, passing Amaury Cordeel at Les Combes when green flag racing started before pressuring and overtaking Verschoor for P10.

Ollie Goethe fell next in the slippery conditions, with Luke passing at Rivage, and Leonardo Fornaroli succumbed to our British hopeful at La Source.

The fight forward slowed a little when Luke reached Gabriele Mini's P7, and then stumbled at the pit stops where a spin on pit exit lost the Hitech GP driver some time.

Undeterred, Luke's fresh tyres gave him the confidence to push forward, passing Pepe Marti at the chicane for P5, which later became P3 after post-race penalties.

A successive Feature Race podium result will give Luke confidence for the upcoming round at Budapest this weekend. He's just 12 points off the championship lead as F2 enters the final round weekend before the summer break.

It was a case of reversed fortunes for Victor and Luke in Belgium, with our French F2 racer impressing in Qualifying and the Sprint Race.

A time good enough for P4 was only 0.018s away from a front-row start, but the Saturday speed Victor had meant he'd be towards the top in the Sprint Race anyway.

Starting from P7, a super start from the ART driver had him navigate the busy Turn 1 hairpin and advance to P4 on the opening lap by taking a wide line around the outside of La Source.

The Safety Car slowdown to clear Luke's car let Victor settle in and plan his moves forward, and he continually pressured Goethe for the final podium position.

A pass down the Kemmel Straight secured P3, but Victor wasn't done with his push forward and soon reached the tail of Cordeel.

Using his additional speed, Victor went around the outside of Les Combes and survived contact that saw Cordeel retiring from the race that triggered a Safety Car.

Chasing down Fornaroli in the closing laps might've netted a victory, but a final Safety Car appearance halted Victor's charge, and he instead celebrated his first P2 finish of the season with a podium trip.

Sunday's Feature Race was not as successful, however, with a slide down the order from P4 to P8 over 19 wet laps of Spa-Francorchamps.

Hungary is a happy hunting ground for Victor, who made two P2 podium trips at the Hungaroring last year to add to his Feature Race P3 from 2023. Could he go one better and take a win this year?

It was back to point-scoring ways for Sandro in Spa-Francorchamps after his first point-less round in Silverstone.

A P18 qualification meant it wasn't going to be a simple run to the top-10 positions, however, and the cancellation of Sunday's Feature Race for rain meant our F3 hopeful had just 12 laps to make an impression.

Four positions gained on the opening lap showed what Sandro was capable of, though, and he needed that speed after a multi-car scrap at La Source dropped him back to P17.

Teammate Tim Tramnitz couldn't match Sandro's speed, though, and P16 soon came the 18-year-old racer's way.

Brad Benavides was the next target for P15, and Sandro passed Callum Voisin at Turn 1 to snatch P14 at the race's halfway point.

Roman Bilinski and Gerrard Xie became our Frenchman's next victims as drivers ahead picked up penalties that effectively advanced Sandro further up the road.

He crossed the line in P12, but that became a P10 classification and another valuable point once others lost time from the stewards, boosting Sandro's 2025 tally to 55 points.

The Hungaroring awaits Sandro this coming weekend, and it's a circuit that holds good memories. He won his first single-seater race at the circuit in French F4 back in 2021.

He'll use that victory for confidence going there in F3 machinery for the first time.