Red Bull turn the difficulty up for Verstappen but he’s still a victory contender

For almost as long as closed-circuit motor racing has been organised, the concept of qualifying has always been a straightforward and simple one. The fastest cars start the race from the front of the grid, the slowest cars start from the back.

However, for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix, three of the top five qualifiers will start the 54th world championship race held at Spa-Francorchamps from the bottom five slots on the grid – a rare side-effect of Formula 1’s strict rules on power unit limitations in a season.

As the first driver in eight years to run with the coveted number one on his car, Max Verstappen has made a habit of finishing in first place on Sundays far more often in 2022 than he has not. Even at Hungary before the summer break, he shrugged off a tenth-place start to rise up into contention for the win by half distance, then have the victory sewn up by the three-quarter mark of the race.

As if to add to their driver’s degree of difficulty for the Belgian Grand Prix weekend, Red Bull decided to make things more interesting for the championship leader by taking enough power unit penalties to drop him to the back of the grid on Sunday. But after a peerless performance on Saturday that left him six tenths clear of everyone, he will line up five places further back in the pack than he started in Hungary.

Verstappen says he aims to be “on the podium” at the conclusion of the 44-lap event. But with the astonishing pace he’s shown so far this weekend, which gave championship rival Charles Leclerc cause for concern on Saturday, his rivals fully expect him to be fighting for the top step on the podium yet again.

“I think Max is going to probably slice through and win the race probably pretty comfortably,” admitted Mercedes’ George Russell, who will start from fifth on the grid. “I think he and Red Bull are just miles ahead of everyone.”

Russell is not alone in that assessment. Carlos Sainz Jnr, credited with pole position despite one of his scruffiest Q3s of the year so far, knows he will be looking in his mirrors regularly to check for a Red Bull – not just that of Sergio Perez, which will start alongside him on the front row, but Verstappen’s too.

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“With the pace Max has, I think as soon as there’s either a Safety Car that can help him close the gap, or even with the pace that he has, that if you translate it into 44 laps, he can come back,” said Sainz. “We’ve seen him do it before.”

However, Sainz will have more pressing matters when the lights go out – namely keeping Perez behind him on the short run to La Source and then the far longer run up the hill and along the Kemmel Straight to Les Combes. History tells us that being in front exiting the famous first hairpin on the opening lap is not always the best position to be in. And front-row starter Perez appears to have been studying.

“I think certainly you don’t want to be leading into Eau Rouge if there’s a car behind, really close by,” said Perez. “But hopefully we can make the most out of it, get a good start and get the lead from Carlos early on.”

Sainz recognises that even without Verstappen around at the start for once, he is due for a challenging opening few laps during the race.

“The first and second stint, it will be a straight battle with Checo and the Mercedes,” said Sainz. “If they have the race pace, we will try and pull away for sure. But I wouldn’t discard the two guys at the back making it through.”

The other ‘guy’ in this instance is Sainz’s team mate Leclerc. While both he and Verstappen make up two of the seven total drivers demoted to the back for the race, they are the only ones with a realistic opportunity to still be a factor at the front in the closing stages.

“I will also be disappointed if I don’t get back on the podium,” admitted Leclerc after qualifying fourth, which earned him 16th on the grid alongside Verstappen.

“Considering he is with me, if he has the pace of today, it’s going to be very difficult for me to get back on the podium. But we never know, a good first stint, a clean race and I’m sure we can get back to the front.”

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After a qualifying performance team boss Toto Wolff frankly described as the worst he’d experienced while involved in Formula 1, George Russell was extremely cautious about their prospects in the race. The driver who arrived at Spa talking up Mercedes’ chances of competing for second place in both championships confined his hopes to getting ahead of third-place starter Fernando Alonso.

“I expect we should be able to be ahead of Fernando,” Russell said. “We’ll probably end up being in no-man’s land behind the front [two] and ahead of everyone else.

Gaining one spot from his Alpine team mate Ocon, Alonso lines up in his best grid position since he started on the front row in Montreal. However, after he fell down the field during the race in Canada after developing a problem with his car, he hopes things play out differently in Spa.

“Let’s see if we can have a better race than Canada – we started P2 and we did some mistakes there,” Alonso said. “Hopefully tomorrow we have a clean race and capitalise on this good starting position.”

Even Alonso had to accept there might be little he could do to resist the Mercedes in the early phase of the race – or Verstappen as the race progresses.

“I think that we have strong competitors behind. The two Mercedes, they are very strong on race pace normally and also Verstappen eventually will come into the podium position as well. So I think realistically, top five, top six should be our normal position at the end of the race, but let’s see if we are lucky tomorrow.”

Starting from sixth – Williams’ best grid position since this very circuit 12 months ago – Alexander Albon is ready to fight whoever comes his way as he looks to make the most of what could be his team’s best race of the season.

“We’ve been quietly confident all weekend,” Albon asserted. “We were P9 on pure pace. Everyone seemed to have clear runs today and we were only a couple of tenths behind Mercedes, so it shows that in certain situations we can really maximise what we have.

“With the penalties we are starting sixth and so we have to try to hold on and maybe even overtake at the start. We’ve got a car that, on paper, should be hard to overtake as we are quick on the straights, but it’s also not a track like Monaco where it’s easy to keep people behind, so it’ll be elbows out tomorrow.”

Conditions on Sunday are predicted to be at their warmest and sunniest of the weekend – for what a forecast at Spa-Francorchamps can be worth. Pirelli say a one stop strategy starting on the medium tyres will be the most natural choice as it allows the best flexibility to pivot to a two-stop if needed. Those moved to the back of the grid could go aggressive by starting on the soft tyres, then pitting twice for mediums to try and take advantage of the long DRS straights and the overtaking opportunities they provide as they make their way through the field.

Only one driver has started from further back on the Belgian Grand Prix grid than 15th place and won – Michael Schumacher from 16th in 1995. Verstappen may ultimately be cruising to his second world championship over this latter half of the season, but storming from near the back of the field to win in Spa would surely be his greatest achievement of the season so far.

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Qualifying times in full

Position	Number	Driver	Team	Q1 time	Q2 time (vs Q1)	Q3 time (vs Q2)
1	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1’44.581	1’44.723 (+0.142s)	1’43.665 (-1.058s)
2	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	1’45.050	1’45.418 (+0.368s)	1’44.297 (-1.121s)
3	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	1’45.377	1’44.794 (-0.583s)	1’44.462 (-0.332s)
4	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’45.572	1’44.551 (-1.021s)	1’44.553 (+0.002s)
5	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	1’46.039	1’45.475 (-0.564s)	1’45.180 (-0.295s)
6	14	Fernando Alonso	Alpine-Renault	1’46.075	1’45.552 (-0.523s)	1’45.368 (-0.184s)
7	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’45.736	1’45.420 (-0.316s)	1’45.503 (+0.083s)
8	63	George Russell	Mercedes	1’45.650	1’45.461 (-0.189s)	1’45.776 (+0.315s)
9	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	1’45.672	1’45.675 (+0.003s)	1’45.837 (+0.162s)
10	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	1’45.745	1’45.603 (-0.142s)	1’46.178 (+0.575s)
11	3	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren-Mercedes	1’46.212	1’45.767 (-0.445s)	Missed by 0.092s
12	10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	1’46.183	1’45.827 (-0.356s)	Missed by 0.152s
13	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’46.178	1’46.085 (-0.093s)	Missed by 0.410s
14	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’46.256	1’46.611 (+0.355s)	Missed by 0.936s
15	47	Mick Schumacher	Haas-Ferrari	1’46.342	1’47.718 (+1.376s)	Missed by 2.043s
16	5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’46.344	Missed by 0.002s
17	6	Nicholas Latifi	Williams-Mercedes	1’46.401	Missed by 0.059s
18	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’46.557	Missed by 0.215s
19	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	1’46.692	Missed by 0.350s
20	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’47.866	Missed by 1.524s

Position	Number	Driver	Team	Q1 time	Q2 time (vs Q1)	Q3 time (vs Q2)
1	1	Max Verstappen	Red Bull	1’44.581	1’44.723 (+0.142s)	1’43.665 (-1.058s)
2	55	Carlos Sainz Jnr	Ferrari	1’45.050	1’45.418 (+0.368s)	1’44.297 (-1.121s)
3	11	Sergio Perez	Red Bull	1’45.377	1’44.794 (-0.583s)	1’44.462 (-0.332s)
4	16	Charles Leclerc	Ferrari	1’45.572	1’44.551 (-1.021s)	1’44.553 (+0.002s)
5	31	Esteban Ocon	Alpine-Renault	1’46.039	1’45.475 (-0.564s)	1’45.180 (-0.295s)
6	14	Fernando Alonso	Alpine-Renault	1’46.075	1’45.552 (-0.523s)	1’45.368 (-0.184s)
7	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	1’45.736	1’45.420 (-0.316s)	1’45.503 (+0.083s)
8	63	George Russell	Mercedes	1’45.650	1’45.461 (-0.189s)	1’45.776 (+0.315s)
9	23	Alexander Albon	Williams-Mercedes	1’45.672	1’45.675 (+0.003s)	1’45.837 (+0.162s)
10	4	Lando Norris	McLaren-Mercedes	1’45.745	1’45.603 (-0.142s)	1’46.178 (+0.575s)
11	3	Daniel Ricciardo	McLaren-Mercedes	1’46.212	1’45.767 (-0.445s)	Missed by 0.092s
12	10	Pierre Gasly	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	1’46.183	1’45.827 (-0.356s)	Missed by 0.152s
13	24	Zhou Guanyu	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’46.178	1’46.085 (-0.093s)	Missed by 0.410s
14	18	Lance Stroll	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’46.256	1’46.611 (+0.355s)	Missed by 0.936s
15	47	Mick Schumacher	Haas-Ferrari	1’46.342	1’47.718 (+1.376s)	Missed by 2.043s
16	5	Sebastian Vettel	Aston Martin-Mercedes	1’46.344	Missed by 0.002s
17	6	Nicholas Latifi	Williams-Mercedes	1’46.401	Missed by 0.059s
18	20	Kevin Magnussen	Haas-Ferrari	1’46.557	Missed by 0.215s
19	22	Yuki Tsunoda	AlphaTauri-Red Bull	1’46.692	Missed by 0.350s
20	77	Valtteri Bottas	Alfa Romeo-Ferrari	1’47.866	Missed by 1.524s

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Over to you

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