It cannot be said that the weekend in Belgium was the easiest for Max Verstappen, but it was by no means the most difficult. Despite the rain, the fact that he was carrying a five-position penalty for replacing the gearbox, the fact that it was a weekend with a sprint format and that mistakes at Spa-Francorchamps are very expensive, the World Championship leader has added the 33 of the 34 possible points of this Grand Prix and he will go on vacation with almost six races ahead. He was only deprived of absolute full power by a Lewis Hamilton who, in the last turn, took away the fastest lap.
Such is his margin against Sergio Pérez, who watched helplessly as he fell short despite being the leader for a few laps, that he might not race again until the Japanese GP on the last weekend of September and would continue to lead the general classification. . Red Bull has achieved twelve victories out of a possible twelve and surpasses that legendary McLaren start in 1988, in one of the most dominating seasons in the history of the competition. More records: Verstappen equals Schumacher as the only one to win 10 of the first 12 races of the year and Red Bull has already doubled its lead in the constructors’ championship over its first rival, Mercedes.
Verstappen’s dictatorship is such that the only one who coughs at him is his own engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, who has already had to ask him several times to focus on driving without errors and not try to destroy. “He uses his head more,” he asked the Dutchman, who hopelessly headed for his eighth consecutive victory.
Although the rain appeared on this Sunday, the race was not affected as it happened in the previous sessions of the weekend. At the start, Charles Leclerc soon realized that his options would be to hold the podium and little else, because Checo took the first position from him in the first moments. From behind, Verstappen was already coming with a lethal voracity and it only took him 17 laps to take first place. His partner was not a rival, nor were the other pilots, aware that sooner or later they were going to fall into his clutches. But the one who did not even have options was Carlos Sainz and not through his fault.
Piastri frustrates Sainz’s options
Oscar Piastri is on a clear rise, as his podium in the sprint on Saturday demonstrated, but this Sunday he did not have his moment. The Australian caused a ‘strike’ that claimed Carlos Sainz as the main victim. The one from Ferrari, with a hole on the side of the car, bled to death over time until he finally had to give up and definitively abandon this race. Spa is still a pending account for a Sainz who had been marking territory for a few tests, but has finally given up.
Once Verstappen took the lead, the emotion was left behind, with a Lewis Hamilton who wanted to profit from his performance against a Fernando Alonso who was forced to take out his old gear. In this case, it was at the start where he showed that whoever had retained.
With his newly released 42 years of age and still spurred on by the bitterness of abandoning the sprint on Saturday, the Asturian immediately found himself sixth in the first few laps, which, together with a more than optimal strategy, was able to get a decent fifth place that, as well knows from the networks, it is already known as the fifth constitutional. That position put George Russell in jeopardy at times, since in the Spaniard’s second pit stop they reached the margin limit with that of Mercedes, who finally had to settle for sixth.
The timid appearance of the rain did not change things much. Just a little scare in a race in which, totally unexpectedly, there was no safety car (yes, several yellow flags), and in which once again we had to wait to see Verstappen celebrate. He came to raise his finger in the parc fermé when not even all the riders had entered the finish line, with a 22-second advantage over Pérez.
Now that Formula 1 goes on vacation until the last weekend of August, when the Dutch GP will be held, perhaps the competition should consider what it can do. Because the superiority of Verstappen and Red Bull is such that it jeopardizes the attraction towards a championship that is more than decided at this point.
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