Max Verstappen might be fastest in Saturday’s Belgian Grand Prix qualifying but will start near the back of the grid as his team have decided to “strategically” take PU penalties for the 14th round of the 2022 Formula 1 World Championship at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday.
Red Bull’s reigning World Champion was in fine form on Friday, ending the day eight-tenths of a second faster than F1 title rival Charles Leclerc who was second quickest in the Ferrari.
Ominously for his rivals, Verstappen was immediately comfortable in the car that has helped him to nine wins so far in this campaign.
Verstappen said in his end-of-the-day report: “From the first laps we did I could feel that the car was working well, so that’s positive. Not much really changed throughout the sessions, we just looked at how we could set up the car in the best possible way and I think as soon as we went out, the car was pretty good.
“Of course, there are always things that we want to fine tune, like the balance, but we can work on that. When it started to rain, I, of course, didn’t push as much, hopefully, today was the worst of it so we should have some cleaner sessions.”
With Power Unit penalties on the cards, Verstappen will be starting at the wrong end of the grid but that should not deter him as he is ‘fresh’ from victory in Hungary, where he started tenth on the grid.
Much of the same will be sought on Sunday at Spa to try and emulate the turnaround enjoyed in Budapest by Verstappen: “That’s what we’ll try to do. We have to!”
Horner: At Spa, it’s probably the smallest overtaking delta needed of the season
Team boss Christian Horner later explained the rationale by Red Bull to take the engine hits in Belgium this weekend: “You look strategically at the calendar and we felt it was particularly tight to get to the end of the year with the engine allocation that we have.
“Then you look at the circuits coming up: Zandvoort, you don’t want to take it there; Monza’s actually harder to overtake than you’d think; Singapore, you don’t want to take it there; Japan’s tricky to overtake.
“So you start running out of options. This is a good track to overtake at and we feel we should be quick here so hence we’ve decided to take the opportunity here.
“Here, it’s probably the smallest overtaking delta needed of the season; here and Bahrain are probably two of the easiest circuits on the calendar to actually make an overtake, so that’s why probably so many people have nominated this circuit to take that penalty, to try and get engines in the pool for the rest of the year,” added Horner
Perez: I think we’re looking good, we’re looking competitive
Others taking similar PU-related grid drops include Lando Norris, Esteban Ocon, Valtteri Bottas, Mick Schumacher and title rival Leclerc at the back of the pack on Sunday.
Rear wing issues and time to find the sweetspot in the Red Bull RB18 hampered Sergio Perez in the sister car who was tenth in both FP1 and FP2, well off his teammate’s pace and a lot of work to do, and he knows it./
Perez summed up his day, “We’ve been very unfortunate with the conditions. We’ve just been out at the wrong time, especially on the final lap [in FP2] with the soft tyre, things were a bit on the damper side, so as soon as you get a damp corner, then you easily lose the balance… and it’s very hard to learn anything.
“We’ll see what we’re able to pick up. I think we’re looking good, we’re looking competitive, but we just have to get everything right,” concluded the Merxican veteran
Ahead of this Sunday’s race, Red Bull lead the F1 constructors standings by 97-point as they seek to win that title for the first time since 2013, over rivals Ferrari , while Verstappen is 80 points clear of Leclerc at the top of the F1 drivers’ standings; Perez is third a further five points down on his teammate.