Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is likely to win the Belgian Grand Prix despite starting 15th, says Mercedes driver George Russell. The world championship leader qualified fastest at historic Spa-Francorchamps, 0.632 seconds clear, but has a grid penalty for excessive engine use. Russell, who will start fifth, said: “Max will probably go through and win the race quite comfortably. I think he and Red Bull are just miles ahead of everyone.” Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, who qualified second to Verstappen and will start from pole, said he also believed Verstappen could fight for victory. “Especially at Max’s pace,” Sainz said, “as soon as there’s a safety car, or even at his pace, with 42 laps he can come back and we’ve seen him do it before.” Verstappen, who won the last race in Hungary from 10th on the grid, starts one place ahead of title rival Charles Leclerc of Ferrari, who also has an engine penalty and is hopeful of a strong result. “With the pace we have in the car I want to go forward and at least be on the podium,” said the Dutchman. Sainz said Verstappen’s pace over the weekend was “a bit confusing – he was more than 0.5 seconds ahead of us in every (tyre) compound and every situation”. Verstappen’s performance was a blow for Leclerc, who is 80 points behind his rival and essentially needs to beat him in almost every race to have any hopes of overhauling him to win the title this year. Leclerc said: “0.7 seconds is a lot. They found something this weekend which is quite impressive. It’s a big gap. “I hope in Zandvoort [next weekend] it will change but before that we have the match tomorrow. We seem to be a bit more competitive [on a long run]. Let’s see how it goes.” Max Verstappen started the weekend having to accept a penalty for using too many engine components which put him near the back of the grid
Another mistake by Ferrari
Leclerc also had to deal with another mistake in the Ferrari pit when his team fitted the wrong tires for his only run in the final qualifying session. Leclerc came out with new soft tires and immediately wondered why he was wearing them. The team told him to press on and go around. Afterwards, Leclerc said: “I mentioned it because I was a bit surprised, but it doesn’t change anything for the rest of the weekend.” It was a relatively minor error, but nonetheless the latest in a series this year – Leclerc lost three potential wins as a result of incorrect pit calls, including the final race in Hungary. “It was probably a miscommunication,” Leclerc said. “I won’t go into too much detail, but it wasn’t a big deal.” It seems the plan was to run Leclerc on used tires for that track, which didn’t matter in terms of grid position due to his penalty. But it does suggest that Ferrari were trying to save a set of new soft tires for the race, because of the grip advantage it provided over a used set. This could be to gain positions at the start or save until the end of the race to finish by then. In itself, this strategy will surprise some teams. Alpine’s Fernando Alonso, who starts third, said that “no one will use red [soft] tomorrow’ because it was too fragile. Hamilton is a seven-time world champion
Hamilton says lack of pace ‘hurts’
It was another difficult day for Mercedes. Hamilton and Russell start fourth and fifth, but the seven-time champion was 1.838 seconds off the pace. Hamilton said: “I never, ever thought we’d be two seconds apart. It’s much, much worse than I thought.” Mercedes brought an upgrade to Spa and hoped that this and some rule changes they thought would affect Red Bull and Ferrari would bring them closer to the front, but instead they had their worst qualifying in terms of overall pace of the year. Hamilton said: “I wish we had done it right and had upgrades that put us up front and fighting at the front, but it’s not like that. “Trust me, it hurts. But you just have to laugh it off and say, ‘I’m not fighting for a championship.’ “If I get too serious and too low, I have a responsibility to try to keep the morale up. You can’t get discouraged. Yeah, it sucks and it’s slow.” Recalling that he was starting fourth and had a strong chance of continuing his run of five consecutive podiums, he said: “It’s so crazy. We’re very slow but we’re starting fourth and maybe we have a chance to get on the podium, who knows … we just have to be optimistic. “This car this weekend hasn’t told me it wants to win, but maybe I’ll talk to it tonight and tomorrow it will respond a bit more. “We don’t know how fast or how slow we’re going to be tomorrow. This is the biggest gap we’ve ever had in qualifying, but what we’re doing is talking about meetings that we have next week – where we’re going to be next year. What can we take from understanding the data and applying it to make sure next year’s car is nothing like this?” Russell blamed tire temperatures for the lack of performance, saying: “We’re a bit lost on the tyres, especially on Saturday. It’s been restrictive all season. Qualifying restriction becomes our strength in the race, but we don’t have the right compromise. “It’s the inherent car limitations that we have. Over the course of a season, we benefit a lot more on Sunday than the limitations that we have on Saturday. We’ve probably only had three or four of the 14 races that are really bad qualifying – Here and Imola and maybe Monaco. There is a clear issue and we want to find a solution, but we don’t have an answer at the moment.” Albon scored two podiums for Red Bull
Albon shines for Williams
Alex Albon moved to Williams this year in an attempt to rebuild his career after leaving Red Bull at the end of 2020 and spending last season as their reserve driver. And, boy, does he do it well. The British-born Thai, a close friend of Russell’s, put in a string of strong performances and on Saturday was the team’s best qualifier of the year, with Albon entering the final stint for the first time and finishing ninth. The various penalties move him up to sixth on the grid. “The car has felt really good all weekend,” said Albon. “We knew we tend to match up on low-pressure tracks and we knew it was a chance to get into Q2, but getting into Q3 is a different ball game, so I’m really proud of everyone. We maximized everything.” He said he was aware of the potential of many of the faster cars behind him but was aiming for points and said his performance underlined the performance Williams have had since a major upgrade was introduced at the British Grand Prix. “We’re in P9 on clear pace,” said Albon. “That doesn’t mean we’re lucky or unlucky. Everyone seemed to have clear runs and we were only a couple of tenths behind Mercedes, so it shows that in some cases we can really maximize what we have and get into those positions. “But it’s hard to achieve that consistently when everything has to be right. “We know the weaknesses of our car. This track hides them a little more than other tracks. We know we’re going [to Zandvoort] next week it won’t be as smiley as this week, but it motivates us and shows that we’re going there the right way. “We’re making improvements, we’re learning from the new package. It’s going in the right direction and now it’s about seeing what else we can do because realistically we don’t have any more updates this year.”
