Don Kennedy: Verstappen and his rocket ship on another planet

Max Verstappen, on another podium, if not planet, for season victory number 9. Photo Don Kennedy

Opinion

This time last year Max Verstappen was winning the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, after starting from pole position and completing just two laps behind the safety car, before the race was abandoned. He started the 2022 race from 14th on the grid due to an engine change. Normally, such a penalty means the rear of the grid, but fortunately, because seven other drivers incurred similar penalties, and Verstappen was quickest in qualifying, he was further up the grid.

His pre-race expectation was to finish in the top five, but the record book will show that he won the race by some 18 seconds or so from his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez.

It was a great day for Red Bull and another difficult one for their closest rivals Ferrari, as pole-sitter Carlos Sainz was 3rd, while Charles Leclerc finished 6th, after also taking a grid penalty and starting just behind Verstappen.

In scoring his 9th victory of the season, and 29th overall, Verstappen is proving unstoppable as he marches towards becoming a double world champion. He was, as Perez put it, "on another planet."

The Mexican who has now moved back into second place in the championship, albeit 93 points in arrears of Verstappen, lamented the fact that despite starting from second on the grid, and getting the better of Sainz, he wasn't able to do better.

"I really hoped for more. Today it was a good opportunity, but Max was just flying, he was on another planet and was untouchable," Perez said.

Untouchable, and unstoppable, because after slicing his way through the field, he was in first place for good after just 18 laps, and exceeded his own high expectations. "It was amazing this weekend," Verstappen told Sky F1.

"We were super competitive already from the get-go and today I knew that we could have a really good result. I mean, winning from P14, even with that car, it's always difficult because you don't know how much you're going to lose on lap one. You don't know in general what's going to happen, right?"

"But luckily I stayed out of trouble even though it was a lot of stuff going on, so I was literally just trying to avoid everything. And once everything calmed down with the safety car, I was just overtaking cars every lap and once I realised I was in P3 even on the soft compounds, we were very quick and I knew I had a good chance of winning the race. The car was unreal today, it felt like a rocket ship."

The safety car was deployed because of two separate incidents through the Les Combes-Malmedy complex, one involving Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, and the other saw Nicholas Latifi spin and take out Valtteri Bottas.

The Alonso-Hamilton incident arose after Alonso and Hamilton had passed Perez at the first corner at the start and were chasing after Sainz, the pole-sitter. Hamilton tried to pass Alonso around the outside, and despite Alonso hugging the curb and giving him adequate space, the two made contact.

Hamilton's Mercedes launched in the air, causing damage as he landed, leading to his retirement, while Alonso appeared to suffer only minor front wing damage and was able to continue, with a blast on the team radio.

"What an idiot closing the door from the outside," Alonso shouted. "I mean, we had a mega start but this guy only knows how to drive and start in first."

The stewards investigated the incident and decided no further action was required with Hamilton escaping a penalty because it was "a first lap incident", which supposedly means you can do what you like as long as it's the first lap.

Hamilton initially refused to go to the medical centre as the rules require, and got a warning. Later, when told what Alonso had said, he shut the questioning down.

"I don't really have a response to it," Hamilton began. "I know how things feel in the heat of the moment, but it's nice to know how he feels about me. It's better it's out in the open how he feels. And like I said, it wasn't intentional, and I take responsibility for that."

He said he wasn't going to talk to Alonso about it because of what Alonso had said, before adding: "I remember looking at the ground, it was definitely high up. I'm grateful to be still alive and in shape."

Given Hamilton wouldn't initially go to the medical centre, his comment about being lucky to be alive is what Hamilton does best, exaggerating and accentuating the obvious for dramatic effect and sympathy. He wasn't getting any from Alonso, who added "it happened the same between him and Rosberg a couple of years ago, so this time it was the same thing."

That incident between Hamilton and Rosberg was actually in 2015 and was the start of their feud that continued until the end of 2016 when Rosberg retired as champion.

Mercedes had turned up at Spa with reports of major upgrades, especially as the FIA had listened to Toto Wolff's plea about driver safety with porpoising and brought in a new Technical Directive [(TD) to stop teams having a flexi floor, a move aimed clearly sat Red Bull. But although George Russell eventually finished 4th, just behind Sainz, it looks like Red Bull has gone forward, and team boss Christian Horner said he owed Wolff a thank you.

Sergio Perez made it a Red Bull one-two. Photo Don Kennedy

"On the face of it, I'd probably have to thank Toto for the TD," he said. "In all seriousness. I think the circuit has played to our strengths."

Ferrari boss Mattia Binoto acknowledged that strength.

"Well done to Red Bull, they've been very, very fast all weekend. They have been faster than anyone else, they've proved to have a competitive package and a very strong team capable of developing the car," he said.

"Certainly, today, we weren't as fast as they were. But, if I look at our position compared to the others behind, it was the usual position so it seems Red Bull moved ahead."

With two laps to go in the race, and Verstappen leading and holding one point for the fastest lap, Ferrari had pitted Leclerc for fresh tyres so he could set the fastest lap. That brought him into Alonso's path, who overtook the Ferrari with a lap to go. Leclerc got him back with DRS on the last lap but was given a 5-second penalty for spending in the pit lane, so finished behind Alonso in the final placings.

The quest for one point had cost them two points, another mistake, certainly by Leclerc, but Binotto defended the decision. "In the end, it was the right choice. We didn't get the fastest lap and we need to look at why. In terms of Charles, it was the right choice".

Alonso, who drove for Ferrari between 2010 and 2014, was surprised and bemused by the Ferrari decision, noting "Ferrari always do some strange strategies. So that was one of those".

Binotto has all but conceded the championships will go to Verstappen.

"Looking at the Drivers Championship, the gap to Max is very high [98 points]. It's not sufficient for Charles to win all the races and finish ahead of him. So, we count on Max not finishing races."

Sainz accepted that the Red Bull was a lot quicker than the Ferrari, but as F1 heads to Verstappen's home race, the Dutch GP at Zandvoort this weekend, he is optimistic about his team's chances.

"I think it's a one-off, I think they just had a super-strong weekend," Sainz surmised.
"We had a bit of a weaker one on a track that probably doesn't suit us a lot."

"I think Zandvoort is a better hunting ground for us and we should be stronger there. It doesn't mean we should beat Red Bull or comfortably beat them, but get back in the fight? I am convinced we should."

Sky F1 commentator and former driver, Johnny Herbert, questioned the radio messages Leclerc's race engineer had exchanged with him during the race. "Why should we stop now?" Leclerc asked.

"So, we are looking at P5 finish at the end of the race," the engineer replied. "Question is would you like to have a new medium to go through the traffic or prefer a new hard, question?"

"You listen to that sort of conversation with Charles," Herbert told Sky F1.

"They're almost asking Charles, who's sort of their strategist, what they want to do and how he wants to do it. That doesn't happen anywhere else down the pit lane. They don't need to ask their driver what he wants to do."

By contrast, the situation on the Red Bull pit wall is one of decisiveness in their race strategy and confidence in their drivers. It's a winning combination, and then there is the calmed assurance of Verstappen when he is behind the wheel.

Unlike last year, there is now no head-to-head tussle without another driver and he could have the championship sewn up with several races remaining. His win in the Dutch GP last year gave him the impetus to withhold the challenge from Hamilton, and he is relatively confident of a repeat victory this weekend.

"I'm just enjoying the moment," Verstappen explained at Spa. "I think also everyone in the team, we are having a good time but we're also very focused on what we want to achieve and at the moment we are achieving that. We'll keep pushing as we want more of these, starting next week in Zandvoort."