Max Verstappen was fastest in qualifying for the 2024 Belgian GP, but had to start the race from P11 following a 10-place grid drop for changing his power unit above the allowance for the season, and could only recover to fifth on the road (which would become fourth after George Russell’s car being disqualified after the race) in what he described as a “damage limitation” race in Spa.
He quickly moved up to eighth place in the opening laps, but struggled to make significant progress in what was a very long ‘DRS train’ containing all of the leading contenders. He made his way past long-shot title rival Lando Norris and Carlos Sainz by virtue of strategy, before making his way past his team-mate Sergio Perez to secure P5 at the flag, pressuring Charles Leclerc for fourth but ultimately missing out.
Speaking after the race, the Dutchman explained how only having one set of the hard compound tyres proved disadvantageous for Red Bull, in a track and conditions that posed very high tyre degradation and favoured those running the white-walled C2 tyres.
He also reiterated how there are positives in a day in which he extended his championship lead over closest challenger Norris:
“It’s better to gain points than lose points. And today could have been either way, because [Norris] was very fast behind me, but at the same time I was also hunting in front of me.
“I think we were on two mediums and a hard, and I think today a hard tyre would have helped.
“Of course, George [Russell] won the race on a one-stop, but I don’t think we had the tyre wear or tyre life to do that anyway. So, yeah, also there are a few things to analyse, but as a team today we did a good job.
“We definitely did the right thing with the strategy to try and be a bit aggressive initially, to try and get ahead of a few, it made my race a little bit better, but then too many cars where we got stuck with.”
He added: “I think he didn’t have the best first lap, I don’t know what happened there. But for me, that is, of course, what I look at. Of course, a lot of the other guys, they’ve done great races, but they’re quite far behind in the championship.
“With the car that [we have] 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. And that’s what we have been doing lately.
“And, of course, naturally, I would just hope that we can find a little bit more performance, which will make our lives a bit easier in the race.”
Reflecting in how his own race panned out, Verstappen is adamant that he didn’t lose significant time when he was temporarily stuck behind his team-mate Sergio Perez, and instead pointed out that he had too much traffic to contend with after his early stop, which hurt his race more than anything:
“I don’t think it’s fair on [Checo] as well [to ask him to move aside], because he’s doing his own race. I think we did the right thing there, I don’t that would’ve mattered a lot in my race,” he explained. “The balance of the car wasn’t too bad always in the first few laps, but of course I also ran a lot in traffic, which probably also didn’t help. But, yeah, we were just not, you know, faster than the cars around us, and then you just get stuck in that DRS train.”
The three-time world champion believes he could’ve fought for the win if he had kept his pole position grid slot, and admitted that doing a recovery similar to those he did in 2022 and 2023 was never “realistic” this season given the relative pace of the RB20 compared to its nearest rivals:
“I think as a team we maximized the performance today. 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, I would have liked to win, but it’s not realistic this time around with the pace that we have in starting in P11.
“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, of course, it’s a positive day.
“It’s fantastic,” he said when asked about rival teams taking points off each other. “I prefer to have it like that than one team, of course, suddenly dominating every single race.”
