F1: Verstappen wins Belgian GP going away

Starting 6th at the start, Max Verstappen picked off one car at a time and once in the lead pulled away to win the Belgian GP going away.

–by Mark Cipolloni–

Once he passed teammate Sergio Perez for the lead, Verstappen drove his Red Bull Honda to a 22-second win, his 10th GP win of the year, and his 12th win of the year including Sprint Race wins.

He has won here at Spa for the third straight year. He passed Perez with 27 laps to go and beat him by 22 seconds – despite starting four places further up the grid than his teammate.

Verstappen was almost a second a lap faster!

Massive!

“It’s a new spot [to win from] P6! I knew we had a good car, it was just about surviving Turn 1, it all got very tight and I just stayed out of that,” said Verstappen.

“This track is super hard on the tires, so you don’t want to do unnecessary things. It was tricky with the laps that it was raining – I had a little sideways moment, definitely not a corner you want it to happen on!”

Verstappen survived one big scare at the fast Eau Rouge when it started to rain.  His car got out of shape – it twitched left and then right, but Verstappen gathered it up without every lifting off the throttle, such his skill.

It was Verstappen’s 45th career F1 win, and the 13th straight for Red Bull, another record. Red Bull has won all 12 races this year, plus Abu Dhabi at the end of 2022.

“It was a good race for the team, we had a great start to get through Charles which was one of the targets for today.”

“I was doing my own race, Max came through pretty fast – nothing I could do there,” said Perez.

“Then it was just about bringing it home. I look forward to not leaving the podium again from now until the end of the year.”

With Verstappen’s win in the Sprint race [8 points] and win today [25 points], Perez now trails Verstappen 314 to 189 points in the driver’s championship, a massive 125 points.

Charles Leclerc out dueled Lewis Hamilton for the final podium position in his #16 Ferrari, the best of the rest.

“We’ve had quite a positive weekend in terms of pace,” said Leclerc.

“A shame for Carlos [Sainz Jr.] as we had good pace, but if you look at Red Bull – they are quite far ahead still.

“The pace was there to keep Lewis behind, and then I knew he was pitting for fastest lap, so that made my life easier.”

Hamilton settled for 4th in his #44 Mercedes, while Fernando Alonso rounded out the top-5 for Aston Martin, ahead of George Russell’s Mercedes.’

Hamilton made a stop for new tires with 2 laps to go and was able to get the single point for fastest lap. That enabled him to close to just 1 point behind Alonso for 3rd and 4th in the championship.

When the lights went out, polesitter Leclerc swung across Perez’s bows to maintain the lead at La Source, while Carlos Sainz, starting fourth, locked up and then came down on  Oscar Piastri running just behind from fifth on the grid on the inside.

The McLaren was pinched against the inside wall, damaging its suspension and ripping the side of the Ferrari’s right-side sidepod.

Piastri had to retire his #81 McLaren on the first lap of 44.

As we head into the summer break, Verstappen has now won 8 straight. If he wins at his home track in Zandvoort when the series returns from the break, he will tie Sebastian Vettel for a record 9 straight F1 wins.

The F1 paddock takes a bit of a break now, three weeks off before returning for the double header of Zandvoort and Monza.

The Dutch GP is on August 27th and all the teams are now obligated to close down all their factories and send all staff on a nice holiday before the final 10 races of the 2023 season.

Belgian GP Race Results

Tracking Verstappen’s Record Run

Destined to beat them all

At Age 25 Michael Schumacher 10 F1 wins
At Age 25 Ayrton Senna 2 F1 wins
At Age 25 Lewis Hamilton, 14 F1 wins
At Age 25 Max Verstappen 45 F1 wins

All-Time F1 Wins

Lewis Hamilton – 103
Michael Schumacher – 91 wins
Sebastian Vettel – 53 wins
Alain Prost – 51 wins
Max Verstappen – 45 Wins

Max Verstappen has 10 wins in 12 races this season.

If he wins another 6 of the remaining 10, he will equal Alain Prost with the 4th most wins in history.

If Max wins 8 more, he would equal Sebastian Vettel’s total of 53, and he is just 25 years old.

TBD: To Be Determined

Verstappen his last 31 races, he won 24 of them….amazing consistent domination and a Red Bull team that is performing at an elite level.

P1 – Imola
P1 – Miami
P1 – Barcelona
P3 – Monaco
P1 – Azerbaijan
P1 – Canada
P7 – Silverstone
P2 – Austria
P1 – Paul Ricard
P1 – Hungary
P1 – Spa
P1 – Zandvoort
P1 – Monza
P7 – Singapore
P1 – Suzuka
P1 – Austin TX
P1 – Mexico
P6 – Brazil
P1 – Abu Dhabi
P1 – Bahrain
P2 – Saudi Arabia
P1 – Australia
P2 – Azerbaijan
P1 – Miami
P1 – Monaco
P1 – Barcelona
P1 – Canada
P1 – Austria
P1 – England
P1 – Hungary
P1 – Belgium