F1: Verstappen wins pole for Belgian GP, will start 6th

On a drying track, Max Verstappen showed why he is the greatest driver in the world by schooling everyone in qualifying for the Belgian GP at Spa Francorchamps.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Verstappen’s lap in tricky conditions on slick tires was a massive 0.820s faster than Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari, who will move up to pole position after Verstappen takes his 5-place grid penalty for a new gearbox.

Perhaps the funniest part of qualifying was watching the bias Sky Sports F1 media’s jaws drop when Verstappen’s fast lap time appeared at the top, after they did their best job of ignoring him….their day ruined.

On the first runs in Q3, it was Leclerc who went fastest with a time of 1m 47.931s, leading Verstappen in second by over a tenth.

However, after Leclerc improved his time on his 2nd run, Verstappen came across the line to take pole position by a massive eight-tenths from the Ferrari driver

“It was very tight in Q2,” said Verstappen where he was only 10th quick.

“The track was drying quickly and I just didn’t have the confidence. But in Q3 with two tire sets, you can push a bit more, risk a bit more.

“I know with the penalty I drop back on Sunday, but today was all about feeling confident.

“We know the car is quick. Last year I had more penalties and we still won the race, so that’s the target.”

“Not a bad qualifying for us, especially in those conditions,” said Leclerc. “I’ve put in a lot of work in those conditions as I wasn’t too comfortable a few races ago.

“We went too early on that last run, we could have been closer. But we have a great starting position for Sunday!”

Sergio Perez was 3rd in the #11 Red Bull Honda and will move up to 2nd for the start Sunday, 0.877s behind his teammate.

“Very tricky qualifying out there, we thought it was going to get a lot drier a lot quicker,” said Perez. “Even in Q3, there were a few places that were very tricky. It’s a good result – a bit of a shame I didn’t get Charles [Leclerc].”

Could he record a first win for the Scuderia this year? That’s what he’ll be aiming for, although one caveat is Ferrari’s race pace, which isn’t always as strong as their qualifying pace.

Lewis Hamilton was a massive 0.919s behind for Mercedes in 4th and Carlos Sainz Jr. rounded out the top-5 for Ferrari, almost 1-second behind.

Daniel Ricciardo will only start 19th out of 20 drivers.

While the AlphaTauri driver was sixth in Q1, his time was deleted for exceeding track limits, leaving him 19th.

Plenty of drivers threatened to cause an upset, but in the end, Verstappen just had too much talent as the track dried up. But he will drop down the order to the tune of five positions thanks to that new gearbox, and he’ll want to avoid first lap incidents before he sets out to demoralize the field on Sunday.

Looking ahead to the race on Sunday, some teams have gone for a wet weather set up, some have put their eggs into a drier basket with Sunday still forecast to be okay.

Downforce levels differ greatly too, so there might not even be much consistency between teammates as to who is strong on the straights and who is better in the corners.

Belgian GP Qualifying Results