Max Verstappen has now not won a Grand Prix in the last four outings, something which happened last in 2020, before the Dutch driver claimed his first worlds title. Having raced following penalties which saw Max start from P14 and P6 in the previous two Belgium Grand Prix, Verstappen was again forced to take penalties at the Spa circuit and started the race in P11.

The world champion driver made swift progress at the start of the race passing Esteban Ocon and Fernando Alonso within a couple of laps. Next up was Carlos Sainz who on the harder tyre appeared to struggle for pace and Max eventually passed the Spaniard.

Yet unlike in olden days where Verstappen would continue to slice through the field, George Russell proved to be an obstinate obstruction. After the race world champion admitted in the media pen: “You get stuck in that DRS train – and we weren’t fast enough anyway. I think we did the best we could, we were in a corner with the tyres but maybe if we’d had another hard tyre, maybe I could have taken one more position – I could have had Charles – but if you look at my first stint I was non seconds off the lead and it stayed there [for the rest of the race].”

 

 

 

Max says ‘damage limitation

Verstappen had qualified on pole position but the penalties for taking extra power unit components meant his race was far more complicated than if he’d not been penalised.

“Of course if you start P1 where we qualified yesterday then my race probably would have looked very different then maybe you can challenge for the win. But of course we took that penalty you start P11 and then of course being stuck in traffic on a track where tyres were overheating its quite crucial. It just a bit of a tricky race when you’re stuck there.

“My race was all about damage limitation – I new that already,” reflected Max. When asked about the current F1 pecking order, Max said, “They are ahead of us. Sometimes McLaren – sometimes Mercedes – I think we were faster than Ferrari today coming from P11 we didn’t have enough time to pass them – we know we have work to do, we want to do better, but everyone is trying and doing a great job.”

Meanwhile on the other side of the Red Bull garage, no Samson like last hurrah was taking place. Sergio Perez is under serious pressure given his lack of results and points contributed to the constructors’ title.

Max and dad Jos disagree over his future team mate

 

 

 

Perez will cost Red Bull a title 

The problem? Checo’s mere 21 points from the last eight race weekends see McLaren closing quickly. In that time Red Bull’s lead from the papaya liveried team has fallen from 115 points to just 38. If this rate of progress continues then McLaren will be ahead of Red Bull as the teams arrive in Austin Texas with six remaining weekends of the year to go.

Prior to the Belgium Grand Prix reports emerged that Dr. Helmut Marko had booked his flight to London for showdown talks with Christian Horner on the future driver lie ups for both Red Bull and the Racing Bull team. The Red Bull advisors views on Perez poor race in Spa does not bear well for the future in Milton Keynes for the Mexican driver.

Perez started second in Spa, but he was muscled out by Lewis Hamilton in turn one of the race and then Checo went on to deliver another hapless performance as he slipped down through the field to cross the line in just P8. This was upgraded to seventh following the disqualification of George Russell.

Dr. Marko blasted Perez after he “completely collapsed” in the heat of battle. This is not rhetoric which bodes well for Checo as talks over his future commence today. His humiliation was complete at the chequered flag when having started nine places ahead of his team mate, was classified three places behind Verstappen.

Sargeant SLAMS Ericsson for ‘false rumour’

 

 

 

Marko blunt over Checo future

Dr. Marko told Sky Germany: “Sergio had the opportunity to take a good result from second place. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Especially in the last stint, he completely collapsed, where he set 1m48s lap times.

“What looked so positive in qualifying unfortunately didn’t materialise in the race.”

The Austrian Red Bull consultant was questioned about the Monday morning meeting to decide the future driver lineups he revealed: “For us, the situation is such that we will also go through the overall situation for 2025. We have a number of drivers and we have a concept.

“But of course every result is [important] for Sergio, and eighth place from second on the grid is certainly not what we expected.”

Hamilton blames Mercedes

 

 

 

Sergio blames ‘power’, ‘balance’, ‘tyres’…

This talk does not bode well for Perez given Red Bull have on more than one occasion effected a driver swap mid-season. Last year Nyck de Vries was axed completely after just ten races and replaced by the then reserve driver Daniel Ricciardo.

Sergio was heard complaining of a lack of power early in the race, something he confirmed in his post race interview. “It was a very disappointing race,” Perez said. “It started well, I was just struggling a lot on the straights. I don’t know what was going on, but I had to save battery early on in the first couple of laps, and I was just very weak on the straights, and once I managed to clear it, charge the pack a bit, I was staying there.

“But then the second stint, jumping onto the medium tyre with all the traffic behind, it just made it really, really difficult. Very tricky.

“We did quite a short stint as well, so we were just out of sync. I think we were just not good with tyres today. Balance wasn’t there as well, so plenty of things to analyse on our side.”

Lack of electrical power, tyres, balance and traffic are all the reasons Checo gave for his lacklustre performance in Spa. Now we wait for the white smoke from Milton Keynes to see if Sergio is right about his drive being safe next time out at the Grand Prix in Zandvoort.

Williams boss explains Sargeant replacement

 

 

 

Mercedes ‘cheating?’ Russell DSQ

Mercedes ‘cheating’? Leads to Russell disqualification from Belgian GP win  –  George Russell won the 2024 Belgium Grand Prix by calling his own tyres strategy which beat his team mate Lewis Hamilton. After the race Hamilton was unimpressed believing the team should have afforded him the same strategy which would have seen him beat his team mate.

Yet after the chequered flag FIA Technical Delegate Jo Bauer issued a statement at 17.50 local time, claiming that the double weighing procedure showed that George Russell’s W15 failed to reach the minimum weight of 798kg.

The statement read: “After the race, car number 63 was weighed and its weight was 798.0kg, which is the minimum weight by TR Article 4.1. After this, fuel was drained out of the car and 2.8 litres of fuel were removed. The car was not fully drained according to the draining procedure submitted by the team in their legality documents as TR Article 6.5.2 is fulfilled. The car was weighed again on the FIA inside and outside scales and the weight was 765.5kg.. READ MORE