2023-07-29 12:46:45
The Dutchman Max Verstappen (Red Bull), outstanding leader of the championship, starts first this Saturday in the sprint test of the Belgian Grand Prix, the twelfth of the Formula One World Cup, which is held at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit; where the Spanish Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) start from third and fifteenth place, respectively; and the Mexican Sergio Pérez, partner of the new sports idol from the Netherlands, from eighth.
Verstappen, 25 years old and who leads with 110 points ahead of his Mexican teammate, set the best time of the third and decisive round of the ‘sprint-shootout’ (Q3), by covering, with the soft tire, the 7,004 meters of the mythical Belgian track -very wet at the beginning and which gradually dried up- in one minute, 49 seconds and 56 thousandths. Exactly eleven less than the Australian rookie Oscar Piastri (McLaren) and with 25 over Sainz, who will start third in the sprint, scheduled -from five past five in the followingnoon (3:05 p.m. GMT)- a third of the way from Sunday’s race.
Sainz starts from the second row, next to his teammate, the Monegasque Charles Leclerc, fourth in the ‘mini-timed’; while ‘Checo’ -who was nine tenths behind ‘Mad Max’- will do so from fourth, alongside the seven-time English world champion Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes), who finished seventh in the reduced qualification.
Alonso will start fifteenth. The Asturian double world champion was eliminated in Q2 on the day of his forty-second birthday; not having been able to mark time following the accident -without major consequences- of his teammate, the Canadian Lance Stroll, which caused the interruption, with a red flag for a session that would no longer be resumed.
The Danish Kevin Magnussen (Haas) and the Japanese Yuki Tsunoda (Alpha Tauri) were eliminated in the first round (Q1), in which Verstappen, with the intermediate tire, set the best time (1:56.135), 804 thousandths less than Hamilton; and with a 903 advantage over Alonso, third in that instance.
The great Asturian pilot was “crushed” in part by his birthday -which he celebrates, with six podium finishes so far this season with third place in the World Championship, 142 points behind the Dutch cannibal- his teammate Stroll, the cause of the elimination, in the second round, of the two green cars.
Stroll, who had been first to fit the medium tyre, lost control of his AMR23 between the eighth and ninth turns of the 19 Spa-Francochamps corners, crashing into the fence and damaging the front right of his car.
The Canadian’s accident caused a red flag with half a minute to go in a session that was not resumed and in which Alonso, who was still on his lap to enter the track, was also eliminated.
Verstappen, who dominated the ‘sprint shoot-out’ from start to finish, once once more set the best time of the round, once more with the intermission. He turned in one minute, 55 seconds and 200 thousandths, 623 less than Hamilton.
In the decisive act, reserved for the best ten and with everyone already rolling on soft tires, ‘Mad Max’ showed that it is not clearly aiming for a third consecutive title by chance.
He improved Piastri by eleven thousandths, by far the best rookie of the season, and Sainz, who starts from the second row, next to Leclerc, by fifteen. Just one row ahead of his former teammate, Englishman Lando Norris (McLaren) -fifth- and Frenchman Pierre Gasly (Alpine).
In the third weekend with sprint format, following those of Azerbaijan (where ‘Czech’ won) and Austria (where Verstappen prevailed), on the followingnoon of this Saturday it is planned to complete a third of the test route this Sunday : fifteen laps will be given, to complete a little more than 105 kilometers.
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