Verstappen encouraged by Spa performance despite 'unlucky' VSC costing him a chance at second

Max Verstappen says a podium at the Belgian Grand Prix is an encouraging return for Red Bull, despite the Virtual Safety Car hurting his chances of finishing second.

Kimi Antonelli overtook Charles Leclerc in the final stint of the race to win by just under two seconds, with Leclerc – who jumped from third to first by pitting under VSC – nearly ten seconds clear of Verstappen. The four-time world champion admits his second stint was less competitive than he’d hoped, but he felt he could have raced with Leclerc if he hadn’t lost track position.

“I think overall the weekend for us was quite straightforward,” Verstappen said. “The car was straight away in a decent window, so I think that just helps a lot.

“To be honest, we got a little bit unlucky with the VSC, and I could have potentially fought with Charles, but the second stint was just a little bit worse than I hoped for. I guess the balance was not where I wanted it to be for a long time during that stint, so I lost too much time in the first half of it. But for us to be on the podium here has been a good result.”

Having briefly led at the start of the race when he overtook Antonelli out of the opening corner, Verstappen said he soon realized he would be immediately vulnerable from the chasing pack.

“Clearly, [I used] too much deployment from Turn 1 to Turn 2,” Verstappen said. “Then I went through Eau Rouge, looked at my battery status and thought, ‘Well, that’s going to be a difficult run to Les Combes.' I expected Kimi to come by, and then I looked in my mirror and just saw a red rocket coming. I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll just hold my line because if I move here, we’re going to have an airplane shunt.’ So, it was pretty incredible, the differences.”

Verstappen’s podium came despite Red Bull reverting to an older specification of rear wing following crashes in Austria and Silverstone, something the Dutchman was happier with over the Spa weekend and hopes translates into strong performance at the next race.

“It performed well,” he said. “I kept it on the road, which I think is the first thing. We were just a little bit more competitive, and the balance was a little bit better. But we struggled more on the hard, as simple as that.

“Honestly, of course it’s nice to be less [energy] starved in Hungary, but I don’t know whether that’s good or bad because, at the end of the day, there are a lot of corners and you need good cornering performance from the car, which makes it impossible to know how good we are going to be.”