World champion Max Verstappen won in Spain, George Russell unexpectedly won in Austria, Lewis Hamilton triumphed at the home spectacle in Silverstone, Oscar Piastri in Hungary and – after Russell’s disqualification – Hamilton again in Belgium. Red Bull does not see Verstappen’s fourth world title as a sure thing, given that there are at least two competitors capable of winning. “It will be a four-way battle,” predicted motorsport consultant Helmut Marko for the rest of the season, which picks up speed again in Zandvoort at the end of August. In addition to Red Bull Racing, the Styrian also sees the potential to win races at McLaren, Mercedes and Ferrari.
Unpredictable like never before
All of the teams mentioned already have at least two victories to their name. The premier class of motorsport is more unpredictable than ever before in its almost 75-year history. “Four teams with such a small gap, that’s good for the world championship,” said Ferrari team boss Fred Vasseur.
Defending champion Verstappen went into the four-week shutdown phase with a 78-point cushion over McLaren driver Lando Norris. No comparison to last year, when he was already 125 points ahead of his teammate Sergio Perez. In 2023, Verstappen won all but three races, and this year alone the Dutchman has missed out on victory four times in a row. There will definitely not be an early World Championship decision this year – like in Qatar in early October 2023.
In Spa, Red Bull and Verstappen decided, as in the past two years, to take an engine penalty and roll up the field from behind. What worked in 2022 and 2023, however, went wrong this time: the former dominator only managed to move up from eleventh place on the grid to fourth place – and that was only because some of his competitors made mistakes. The Belgian-born local hero missed out on his fourth Spa victory in a row.
“Trying to find solutions for the rest of the season”
“All in all, it was quite a positive day for me, considering we started from P11 and finished ahead of Lando, my main rival in the championship,” said Verstappen. “We are looking forward to the summer break and to relaxing a bit, but at the same time we want to get better and faster and try to find solutions for the rest of the season.”
Overtaking was a problem for faster cars, and not just in Belgium. Now that the aerodynamic gimmicks have almost been exhausted, the “dirty air” of the car in front is once again becoming a problem.
Mercedes, on the other hand, won three of the four races before the break and limited the gap to Ferrari in third place to 56 points in the constructors’ championship. “Despite the disqualification, there are a lot of positive things that we can take away from the weekend. We had a car that was the benchmark in the race, with two different strategies. A few months ago that would have been unthinkable,” analyzed team boss Toto Wolff.
