Verstappen maximises in Belgium despite limited top speed and an ill-timed VSC

Verstappen actually got away well from his grid slot, allowing him to perfectly line up towards Eau Rouge into the first corner. The boost, however, came a touch too early, meaning he passed Antonelli before reaching the famous corner. With his nose in the wind the Red Bull lacked top speed, making Verstappen easy prey for both Antonelli and Charles Leclerc. Behind Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton tapped former teammate George Russell, immediately bringing out a Safety Car.

On lap 6, it became clear that Verstappen didn’t only have to defend. The Dutchman came out of Eau Rouge in Leclerc’s slipstream and passed the Monegasque straight away on the Kemmel Straight.

After overtaking Leclerc, he made a major effort to get within a second of Antonelli, but didn’t quite manage it. As a result, Verstappen couldn’t use Overtake mode and had to wait for the pit stops to launch an attack. Antonelli wasn’t much faster than Verstappen, because in the more than ten laps that followed until the first pit stops, Antonelli only pulled one second further clear.

On lap 18, Verstappen was the first to dive into the pits. The Dutchman was then 2.5 seconds behind Antonelli, but was mainly defending against an undercut from Leclerc, who had crept uncomfortably close. Half a lap later, a Virtual Safety Car seemed to throw a wrench in the works, but it ended before Antonelli reached the pits. Antonelli still came in and rejoined ahead of Verstappen.

Two laps later, there was another VSC due to gravel on the track. This VSC lasted longer than the first, giving the Ferraris time to pit. With this cheap pit stop, Leclerc slipped into the virtual lead, while Hamilton could also serve his penalty and pit on the cheap, but he rejoined behind Verstappen, Antonelli, and even Piastri. Lando Norris was still leading, but he had not yet made his pit stop at that point.

On lap 29, Verstappen finally managed to pass Norris for third place. Although Norris still had to pit and had been running on the hard tire for many laps, Verstappen struggled to get by. The lack of top speed hurt Verstappen again, just as it had at the start of the race. At that point, Verstappen had to let go of any hopes of winning—the gap to Leclerc had grown to seven seconds.

On the hard tire, Verstappen proved far less competitive than he had been on the medium. In clean air, Verstappen lost ground to the dueling leaders, Leclerc and Antonelli. Meanwhile, he spent the rest of the race mostly looking in his mirrors. While Oscar Piastri didn’t seem to pose a threat, Hamilton did close in and had better pace than both Verstappen and Piastri.

On lap 40, Hamilton got past Piastri, leaving him with a 4-second gap to bridge to Verstappen for the final podium spot. Hamilton, however, couldn’t close the gap to Verstappen, allowing the Dutchman to secure his third podium of the season.

Verstappen’s third place was clearly the maximum achievable this weekend. On Saturday, he received help from teammate Hadjar, who provided a helpf tow to allow him to start from second place on the grid, but the reality is the car was lacking speed to their rivals.