Max Verstappen fears he won’t be able to threaten the dominant McLarens in Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix, with his Red Bull car expected to struggle.
According to Motorsport, Verstappen won Saturday's dry sprint race, having snatched the lead away from Oscar Piastri on the Kemmel Straight before making the most of his straightline speed to defend his advantage throughout the contest.
However, the Dutchman expects to struggle more over a full race distance – especially after he qualified fourth in a “not very good” Q3 performance, 0.341 seconds down on pole, behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Verstappen said, “I think we should be fighting for P3, realistically speaking. In dry conditions, anyway. Rain can always cause a bit of chaos, but then McLaren normally has an even bigger advantage. So P3 is the highest achievable position. That was actually the case today in the sprint race, they just didn't manage to get past.”
It is worth noting that it has been raining near-continuously at Spa-Francorchamps since around 6am on Sunday morning.
Verstappen’s main worry is Red Bull’s tendency to overheat – and consequently degrade – wet-weather rubber much more quickly than McLaren. This applies to the full-wet compound, which is seldom used, and intermediate tyres.
