King, and emperor in his lands: no place for surprise, Max Verstappen returned to honor his status as leader of the Formula 1 World Cupby claiming his eighth win in a row this season in Belgium, ahead of his Red Bull teammate Sergio Pérez and Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari.
Verstappen reigns in Belgium, but is left without a trophy
As the lights went out over the legendary Spa-Francorchamps track, shrouded in threatening clouds, Leclerc was aware that the powerful Red Bulls would be difficult to contain.
After starting from the third row, in sixth place, something unusual for him, due to a penalty for changing the gearbox, Verstappen prevailed in front of his teammate ‘Checo’ Pérez and Leclerc (Ferrari), who had held pole position, but was unable to rival the Red Bulls. The Monegasque was not wrong, since from the first laps, Pérez, second on the grid, took the lead from Ferrari.
Behind, Verstappen benefited from an early race collision between Australian Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and Spaniard Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) to move up to fourth before the end of the first lap.
The Dutchman continued to ride at a great pace, first overtaking seven-time world champion Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), and a few minutes later, Leclerc.
After eight laps, he was second behind Pérez. Driven by a public for the most part devoted to his cause, it took 17 laps for the driver born in the Belgian town of Hasselt, less than a hundred kilometers from the Ardennes track, to take advantage of his partner.
“I knew we had a great car, we just had to survive the first corner,” he said.
Verstappen.
The current double world champion, who signed his third consecutive victory at Spa in F1now has a stratospheric advantage of 125 points over his first rival Sergio Pérez, author of his second consecutive podium in GP.
“It was a good race for the team. We had a great start to get past Charles, and I was doing my race, but Max passed pretty quickly. There was nothing I could do.”Perez explained.
In the celebration, Verstappen’s trophy was broken, as in the previous GP.
(Eight days ago: Unusual video in Formula 1: Norris destroys the trophy that Max Verstappen won for him).
More news
AFP
#Verstappen #reigns #Belgium #trophy #broken #unusual #video #Formula