Max Verstappen gave another masterclass at Spa in delivering a crushingly fast lap in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix. The Red Bull driver, however, will not start from pole because he has a five-place grid penalty. Charles Leclerc, who took a very strong second for Ferrari will be on pole instead, with Red Bull’s Sergio Pérez alongside him on the front row having been promoted from third.
Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton was fourth and will start from third, while Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz moved from fifth to fourth and McLaren’s Oscar Piastri sixth to start in fifth.
Verstappen was quickest on track in Spa by a country mile but has the penalty for taking his fifth gearbox of the season and will start from sixth. Red Bull have opted to take the hit in Belgium because of the ample overtaking opportunities on the circuit.
Indeed, last year Verstappen started from 14th and still came through the field for a dominant victory. With the Red Bull’s pace advantage this year even greater and their car very much suited to the high-speed corners at Spa he is clearly confident that a win remains well within his compass on Sunday.
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When it mattered, Verstappen demonstrated ominous pace. With rain on and off throughout the day the track was treacherous as the session began and with only one practice session of limited running in heavy rain preceding it, qualifying was a difficult, tense affair that required exceptional control as the circuit dried and the grip increased and the world champion duly delivered.
As more rubber was put down, the times were dropping in Q3 making the very final runs key and for a gripping shoot-out. Leclerc had the advantage on the first hot laps with a 1min 47.932sec lap, a tenth up on Verstappen.
On the final runs and the grip at its best, the session came down to a single lap and looked to be as open a contest as has been seen this season. Leclerc improved first to hold his provisional pole only for Verstappen to finally reveal the Red Bull’s real pace as he delivered an exceptional lap, a massive eight-tenths up on Leclerc with a 1min 46.168sec run.
It had not gone entirely swimmingly for the Dutchman, however. Verstappen faced a real scare, just scraping through in 10th in Q2. Angry at almost going out, he lambasted his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase, unhappy that he had been told to do a slow lap in between his final two quick runs and accusing the team of “s**t execution”.
In what was a highly unusual spat between the pair, Lambiase hit back, asking his driver if he wanted to choose the set-up, fuel and run plans himself.
No doubt placated by the cavernous margin he had on the rest of the field Verstappen then apologised for his “rant”, to which his race engineer laconically replied it was fine, as he was “slowly getting used to it”.
Hamilton and his team-mate George Russell, who was eighth, are under investigation for an unsafe return to the track and may yet face a penalty.
Off track, as part of a major restructuring at the Alpine team that is ongoing, the team dramatically announced on Friday the removal of some senior personnel, including team principal Otmar Szafnauer after just 18 months in charge.
They also announced the exit of sporting director Alan Permane, who has been with the Enstone-based team for 34 years, since it was Benetton. Both will leave in short order after the Belgian GP.
Williams, meanwhile, declared that Alpine’s chief technical officer, Pat Fry, is joining them to become technical director.
The suddenness and timing of the announcement, midway through the Friday of a race weekend suggests the team is going through considerable contortions behind the scenes.
Last week the Alpine chief executive Laurent Rossi was replaced by Philippe Krief, who had been made their vice-president of engineering and product performance only in February and Bruno Famin was made vice-president of motorsport.
Famin now steps up to be the interim team manager. It is believed the former Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto is lined up to take over at the team.
Elsewhere in qualifying, Lando Norris was seventh for McLaren, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll ninth and 10th for Aston Martin.
Yuki Tsunoda was 11th for AlphaTauri, Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon in 12th and 15th for Alpine, Kevin Magnussen in 13th for Haas and Valtteri Bottas in 14th for Alfa Romeo.
Alex Albon and Logan Sargeant were in 16th and 18th for Williams, Guanyu Zhou in 17th for Alfa Romeo, Daniel Ricciardo was in 19th for AlphaTauri and Nico Hülkenberg 20th for Haas. – Guardian
