Tag: Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen says his Belgian Grand Prix weekend was positive because he managed to extend his championship lead, despite a grid penalty.

Red Bull took a new internal combustion engine (ICE) on Verstappen’s car at Spa-Francorchamps, with the track traditionally much better for overtaking than many other venues. Although he struggled to make significant headway after the opening few laps, Verstappen managed to get ahead of Lando Norris through strategy to cross the line fifth, being promoted to fourth by George Russell’s post-race disqualification. 

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“The balance of the car wasn’t too bad in the first few laps, but of course I ran a lot in traffic, which probably also didn’t help,” Verstappen said. “But yeah, we were just not faster than the cars around us, and then you just get stuck in that DRS train.

“I think as a team we maximized the performance. Naturally, if you start P1 with the pace that we had, I think you’re fighting for the win, regardless. But starting P11, I knew that it was always going to be a damage limitation race.

“Of course, looking at the championship, it was still a positive day. I extended my lead, where it could have also easily been calculating losses. So from that side it’s a positive day.”

Originally starting the race seven places behind Norris, Verstappen admits his main focus was on the McLaren driver who is his closest championship challenger, albeit over 70 points adrift.

“I think he didn’t have the best first lap, I don’t know what happened there. But yeah, for me that is what I look at, naturally.

“A lot of the other guys, they’ve done great races, but they’re quite far behind in the championship. And for me, it’s with the car that at the moment probably is not the quickest in the race. It’s about just limiting the damage and trying to be as close as I can be every single time.

“That’s what we have been doing lately. And naturally, I would just hope that we can find a little bit more performance because it will make our lives a bit easier in the race.”

Verstappen finished ahead of teammate Sergio Perez – who faded from second on the grid to be classified seventh – and had a short spell behind him, but doesn’t think Red Bull should have overly impacted Perez’s race to help the championship leader’s recovery.

“No, I mean, I don’t think it’s fair on him, because he’s doing his own race as well,” said Verstappen. “So, I think there we did the right thing. I don’t think that would have mattered a lot in my race.”

Max Verstappen believes he will need luck to fight with McLaren for victory in the Belgian Grand Prix as he attributes his qualifying advantage to a higher-downforce setup than his rivals.

The championship leader has taken a 10-place grid penalty for exceeding power unit components at Spa-Francorchamps, and will start from 11th after setting the fastest time in qualifying. In a wet session, Verstappen was 0.6s clear of the rest of the field, but he says that was due to the setup he opted for that is designed to protect his tires as he fights through on Sunday.

“It was a good day,” Verstappen said. “Of course yesterday we tried a few things with the car. I think we learned from that and today we tried to put on the car what we thought was best — and I think as you could see we ran maybe also a little bit more downforce compared to some competitors.

“So naturally in the wet it’s probably a little bit more stable and that can help around here. But overall I think the laps were good in qualifying, all the way from Q1 to Q3. I passed Q1 and Q2 only on one tire set — that was important because that gave me of course a better opportunity for Q3 and everything was working well.

“But of course today is not as important because tomorrow is going to be dry, it’s going to be warmer and we need to be good on tires. Starting 10 places back it is going to be a little bit more tricky. I don’t expect it to be like the last two years, naturally looking at the cars around us being quite quick.

“So we’ll just try to move forward, try to fight Ferraris, Mercedes and with a bit of luck maybe the McLarens but it all depends on our pace ourselves.”

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Starting right in the middle of the field, Verstappen — who won from 14th on the grid in 2022 and sixth last year — says his primary target is not to get caught in any incidents on the opening lap.

“Survive lap one and just go from there,” he said. “We also have a bit of a different tire strategy to the other cars so we have to wait and see how that will evolve in the race but we’ll see what we can do.

“Of course I’m not as confident as I was the last two years around here in coming back to the front. I still see it more as like a damage limitation race. That’s how it is but at least today was I think the best possible we could do in terms of the starting position for tomorrow.”

Max Verstappen easily topped first practice at the Belgian Grand Prix although that early momentum was offset by confirmation of a grid penalty for the Dutchman after his Red Bull entry took a new internal combustion engine.

The world champion was peerless on the soft tire around the 4.4-mile circuit, setting the benchmark at 1m43.372s and putting himself 0.531s at the head of the field. His time in the downforce-dependent middle sector was particularly impressive, clocking in at 0.629s quicker than anyone else.

Oscar Piastri, first-time winner from last weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, was next best in his McLaren. The Australian was also closest to Verstappen — albeit more than 0.1s adrift — in the flat-out final sector.

Alex Albon was a surprising third for Williams, only 0.196s slower than Piastri. His Williams was quickest of any other car in the first and final splits, including 0.429s quicker than Verstappen in the first sector, pointing to a radical lack of downforce on the FW48. Conversely, his time in the middle sector was among the worst in the field and a whopping 1.361s slower than Verstappen.

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Mercedes teammates George Russell and Lewis Hamilton were dissatisfied in fourth and fifth, 0.853s and 0.907s off the pace respectively. Russell complained of a lack of rear downforce, while Hamilton was troubled by severe bouncing around the aerodynamically demanding circuit.

Charles Leclerc was sixth in the quickest Ferrari, lapping 0.934s slower than Verstappen.

Sergio Perez, under pressure to save his Red Bull Racing seat with a big result this weekend, struggled markedly through the session. While he was fractionally up on Verstappen in the first sector, an apparent lack of confidence saw him lose 0.849s to his teammate through the middle stint and more than 0.15 in the final sector.

“I’m really struggling to know what the car is doing on entries,” he radioed. “All speeds. Low speed and medium, I don’t have the feel of what’s going on.”

Lando Norris was eighth after locking up on his fast lap, costing him more than half a second through the middle sector and leaving him 1.043s adrift. Carlos Sainz followed in the second Ferrari at 1.2s off the pace, with Lance Stroll completing the top 10, 1.3s adrift.

Pierre Gasly, equipped with a new gearbox, was the sole Alpine in the session, finishing 11th, after teammate Esteban Ocon was withdrawn from FP1 on his installation lap, with the team citing a water leak in his power unit for the absence.

Fernando Alonso was 12th ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, who was lucky to see out the session after a spin on the wet exit curbs at La Source that took him perilously close to the inside concrete barrier before he came to rest.

Valtteri Bottas was 14th ahead of Logan Sargeant in 15th.

Yuki Tsunoda was 16th fastest and equipped with an entirely new power unit that will force him into a back-of-grid start on Sunday.

Nico Hulkenberg was 17th ahead of Haas teammate Kevin Magnussen and Zhou Guanyu, while the lapless Ocon ended the session last without a time.

Max Verstappen admits he’s likely to be in damage limitation mode rather than in the mix for victory in the Belgian Grand Prix as he’s set to take a power unit penalty.

Red Bull has been weighing up when is best to take new power unit components as Verstappen has already used the maximum number allowed of his internal combustion engine, MGU-H, MGU-K, energy store and control electronics. Spa-Francorchamps has been a venue where Verstappen has taken similar grid penalties in the past and still fought through the field to win, but he says the competitive picture this season makes that scenario unlikely to be repeated.

“[A penalty is] likely, but I knew of course that it is coming,” Verstappen said. “It’s not a surprise to me. We’ll find out on Sunday how good that is going to be. Some tracks naturally are a bit better than others. Of course on a street circuit, you wouldn’t want to have an engine penalty. So yeah, most likely it will be here.

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“Probably yes [damage limitation will be the goal]. If you look at our last few races where we haven’t particularly been the fastest, I wouldn’t say that with 10 places extra we have a chance of winning. But again, a race can always be turned upside down with moments. We have to be open minded and try to make the best of it. That’s what we’ll try to do.

“At the moment, I also don’t know how competitive we’re going to be here. In a few places there’s new tarmac, so we need to see how the tires respond to that as well. So, still a lot of unknowns. Obviously with the weather, quite a bit of rain expected on Friday and Saturday. So we just need to follow the weather and just progress through the weekend, and see how competitive we are.”

McLaren’s one-two in Hungary sparked debate about whether Lando Norris should have been given priority in order to try and close what is currently a 76-point gap in the drivers’ championship, and Verstappen admits he has considered that Norris could be able to make it a close title fight later in the year.

“Yeah, naturally of course if they are the dominant force and they keep winning, then for sure. But at the end of the day we just need to focus on ourselves, as we can do things better as well in terms of optimizing the car performance. So that’s where my attention goes.

“Of course you have it in the back of your mind, the championship, but I think we first need to focus on just trying to find a bit more performance in the car.”

Verstappen was frustrated by Red Bull’s strategy in Budapest as he finished fifth, and his radio comments came under scrutiny as well his pre-race schedule of competing in a sim race until the early hours of the morning. On both fronts, the three-time world champion says he’s unfazed, with Red Bull sharing his disappointment at how the race played out but not questioning his extra-curricular activities.

“Yeah, I raced until 3am, it’s not something new,” he said. “For me, it’s something very important in my life. Now there are not any other sim races coming up anyway, so no one needs to worry about that. It’s always when you don’t win the race, you will blame it on, ‘Ah, you were staying up until 3am, oh he’s one kilo overweight,’ there is always things to make up that you know you can argue about when you don’t win a race.

“But, for example at Imola, I do win the race, both of them. For me, this is not something new — I’ve been doing this since 2015. So for me, this is not something that is any different in my preparation.

“I’ve won three world championships. I think I know pretty well what I can and what I cannot do, and I’m always very hard on myself what is allowed and isn’t allowed. I think with all the experience that I have in Formula 1, I think I know quite well what is possible.

“We talked about it. I said [to Red Bull’s Helmut Marko], ‘You don’t need to worry.’ I said there’s no other race coming up. But no, it’s not like I have a ban or whatever. I also don’t need to tell them what they do in their private time and during the weekends. That’s the same for me.”