Successful damage limitation for Verstappen in Belgium

Max Verstappen salvaged a fourth place finish at the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday after taking a grid penalty at Spa-Francorchamps.

The world championship leader extended his lead over Lando Norris heading into the summer shut-down to 78 points after finishing ahead of the McLaren man, with the pair promoted one position each post race after George Russell’s disqualification.

Verstappen took a fresh engine for the race, meaning his dominant qualifying performance on Saturday, which saw him head the field by more than half-a-second, saw him start 11th for the race. The Dutchman would climb to eighth in the early stages but found himself in the DRS train in the gaggle of drivers in the battle for fourth.

With varying strategies, Verstappen would emerge in the battle on the road for fourth place, allowed past by team-mate Sergio Perez to attack Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc while fending off Norris’ fast-catching McLaren.

Unable to pass the Ferrari though, Verstappen finished fifth on the road, but an unweight winner Russell would be disqualified, promoting the Red Bull man.

He said: “All in all it was quite a positive day for me, considering we started at P11, and we finished in front of Lando who is my main rival in the Championship. I think we did everything right with the strategy today.

“I was in the DRS train and it was difficult to pass, but I think strategy wise we did everything that we could to the limit. It wasn’t realistic to start P11 and fly to the front, so I am overall happy with our performance.”

For Perez, there was an air of disappointment. Having started second on the grid, he dropped to third behind corrected race-winner Lewis Hamilton but could never mount a challenge on those ahead. Pit-stops also saw him drop down the order, before he moved over to allow Verstappen through later on, finishing seventh.

“We compromised a lot in the final stint, in the strategy we lost quite a bit of time unfortunately,” he said. “We managed to set the fastest lap at the end, which was the maximum we could get today and more points in the bag.

“It’s been a bit of a rollercoaster for me recently, as a team we need to re-group and take some time during the summer break to understand everything and hopefully we hit the ground running for the second half of the season.”