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Wins don’t come much more imperious than Max Verstappen’s at the Belgian Grand Prix — and defeats don’t come more demoralising than that he handed to Ferrari.
The Italian team’s title chances were already long shots at best arriving at Spa-Francorchamps, but having had the chance to reset after a calamitous first half of the season on the pit wall and with the belief that it still fielded the grid’s fastest car, Belgium was a final opportunity to try to revive its campaign.
Instead it was on the receiving end of a Red Bull Racing gut punch that exhausted all remaining hope of a return to title glory.
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But while Ferrari defeats are the norm this season — it’s been on pole for nine of the 14 races so far this season but won just four times to Red Bull Racing’s 10 triumphs — its loss in Belgium was different.
It was more comprehensive and, despite a late strategic error in pursuit of the point for fastest lap, largely uninfluenced by team error.
So while Ferrari and Leclerc’s title hopes are now well and truly finished, they face the ignominy of ending an unsuccessful campaign way off the pace and a shadow of the team that dominated the early stages of the year.
WHAT WAS FERRARI MISSING IN SPA?
Verstappen’s 18-second victory over teammate Sergio Perez is a remarkable demonstration of on how high a level he was operating at the weekend, but Perez’s own 10-second advantage over Carlos Sainz demonstrated that there was never really going to be a competition between Red Bull Racing and Ferrari at the weekend.
When asked where he felt the deficit was to the leading cars, third place-getter Carlos Sainz was sardonic in reply.
“They were just strong in quali, strong in the race, better in tyre management, stronger on the straights, stronger in the corners,” he said. “They were on another planet this weekend.”
That’s a comprehensive list.
That Red Bull Racing fielded a quicker car than Ferrari around the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps sweeping sylvan slopes isn’t entirely surprising.
The track pays big dividends for high top speed, which has been the RB18’s territory all year, and the RB18 has generally been the more aerodynamically efficient this season, meaning it could add some downforce onto the car for performance in the tighter middle sector without losing too much down the straights.
The SF-75, on the other hand, carries a lot of downforce but also much more drag. It’s what makes the car so competitive around shorter and slower circuits but less impressive in a straight line.
There was also Ferrari’s long-running issue with tyre wear to contend with. The warmer weather on Sunday meant degradation was higher than expected, and both drivers had to lap to a set time just to ensure they made it to the end of the race with rubber left on the carcass.
That Verstappen ran a longer first stint on the soft tyre and with a full tank of fuel than Sainz could manage with the more robust medium tyre in the middle of the race says all you need to know.
The tyre problems were so bad that George Russell even had a sniff of Sainz’s podium place late in the race.
“Carlos started on pole and was leading the first stint and we closed on him both times,” Russell said. “At worse we are equal with Ferrari today.”
Considering how wayward Mercedes is this season, that’s a serious knock.
NEW RULES MUDDY THE FORM BOOK
But the spectre of a new battleground also hung over the Belgian Grand Prix: the FIA’s technical directive designed to reduce cars bouncing and potentially injuring drivers came into effect this weekend.
The rule change affects the plank, which sits underneath the floor of the car and controls the minimum ride height. It’s 10 millimetres thick; if it’s found to have worn down to less than 9 millimetres after the race, a car is considered to have run illegally low and is disqualified.
The FIA measures the plank at certain defined points, and there were suspicions earlier this year that some teams had engineered their planks to flex so that they struck the ground away from where the scrutineers would measure for wear.
This technical directive closes that loophole and theoretically forces cars to be run with a higher ride height, and in the first race at which it came into force, Ferrari seemed to slip away from Red Bull Racing.
“A lot was made and a lot of expectation was put on that TD, so perhaps it’s hurt others more than it’s hurt ourselves,” Red Bull Racing boss Christian Horner said. “We haven’t really changed the way we operate the car.
“I think we have seen that already this year if we run a higher ride height, our philosophy is probably slightly different to some of the others.”
But Spa-Francorchamps is also a circuit at which cars have to be raised a little on their suspension anyway due to the compression through the steep Eau Rouge and some bumps in the second and third sectors. It could be that this was always going to happen here regardless of the technical directive just because of the nature of the track.
It’s why a bigger sample size of circuits is required.
THE MAX FACTOR
It’s also worth considering just how well Verstappen was driving in Belgium, which stands quite apart from the fact he was delivered a class-beating car.
After all, Perez’s 10-second gap back to Sainz was relatively modest — Verstappen had almost twice as large an advantage over the Mexican.
Verstappen is in sparkling form, and after June and July were dominated by talk of Ferrari throwing away its title chances, the Dutchman’s superlative drive in Spa recentred the narrative that he alone was in control of the destination of the title.
“I think if you look at the whole weekend, yes,” Verstappen said when asked if this Belgium had been the best weekend of his career. “I don’t think we expected it to be like this but sometimes it’s nice when things positively surprise you.
“It’s been really enjoyable to drive the car around here this year.”
Team boss Christian Horner was typically but not unduly boastful of his star man.
“I think Max was quite simply in a league of his own today,” he said. “Not just today, but all weekend.
“He qualified on pole on two sets of soft tyres throughout the whole of qualifying and didn’t even do the last run, so it’s been a huge performance for him this weekend.
“Max since winning that championship last year has taken another step. It’s in many ways released him and he is driving at an incredible level.”
It’s easy to say his first world title has taken Verstappen to another level when he’s faced substantially less competition and therefore pressure this season — after all, remember his small blow-ups early in the campaign when RBR was suffering a spate of unreliability.
But it’s also clear that he’s driving less tightly and more expressively than last year, particularly at close quarters — just observe the way he dealt with the confines of the midfield on the first lap in Belgium for evidence.
We’re witnessing Verstappen fully stretch his legs, and it’s a formidable sight.
EXPECTATIONS IN CHECK FOR ZANDVOORT
This weekend’s Dutch Grand Prix will be run in completely different circumstances. Not only will more consistently warmer weather help Ferrari to better set up its car for the race, but the circuit itself is tighter and on paper more rewarding for a car like the SF-75. It also has a short front straight, which will neuter Red Bull Racing’s advantage.
But the same should have been true at the Hungarian Grand Prix, and while a sudden cooling of the track on Sunday explains some of the reason Ferrari struggled after an ominous Friday, Max Verstappen and Red Bull Racing were the class of the field and swept to an effortless victory.
Perhaps more concerning still is that it’s a bumpy and undulating circuit, which will require teams to run with a higher ride height for the second weekend in a row.
It’s why Mattia Binotto remains unconvinced Ferrari’s defeat in Belgium was track specific, with the team boss concerned that the SF-75 has lost its way in the last two rounds.
“It has been a true difference between us and the Red Bulls this weekend,” he said. “If I look back, I think they have been slightly faster in Hungary, which has been a different kind of track — high downforce.
“So overall I think simply today the Red Bull is a faster car compared to what we’ve got in terms of overall efficiency, because Spa is where you need efficiency in terms of the aerodynamics and power unit.
“But more than that, we have as well a lot of tyre degradation that we need to look into. They have been stronger as well in terms of tyre degradation.
“So I don’t think it has been an outlier. They are faster to us than what I am hoping.”
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That said, Spa is 1.6 times longer than the punchy Zandvoort track. That alone would bring Ferrari’s deficit down from 0.6 seconds to around 0.4 seconds before any favourable circuit characteristics are taken into account.
Is that enough to be considered striking distance?
“Certainly the gap we have seen today is not the gap we will have in the next races,” Binotto said.
“I think Spa is always amplifying the gaps because it is a long track, and whenever you’ve got a slight advantage on efficiency, normally it’s amplified and very obvious on such a circuit.
“So yes, we hope to be back in the next races to be closer. I still believe they have got a slightly faster car. But tyre degradation has been I think the most as well element affecting the performance of today.
“We need to understand it and try to address it as soon as possible, because it will be important as well for the next races.”
But with two grands prix coming thick and fast on the next two weekends, time is of the essence.
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