Max Verstappen insists he and Red Bull could have been Formula 1 2024 Belgian Grand Prix victory contenders, had he started from higher up the grid at Spa.
Verstappen topped qualifying for the fourth year in a row in Belgium, but for the third successive race at the venue he had to drop down the grid as a result of penalties for changing car parts beyond those allowed in the rules – having needed a fifth internal combustion unit of the 2024 campaign.
From 11th on the grid, Verstappen quickly worked his way to the tail of the frontrunning pack.
He then undercut distant title rival Lando Norris at the first pitstops and pushed on to stay ahead of the chasing McLaren as they climbed by the falling Sergio Perez in the other RB20 and ultimately came up just short of passing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in fourth.
But he was promoted to fourth after the race, following on-the-road winner George Russell's disqualification.
Verstappen reckoned “the balance of the car wasn't too bad always in the first few laps”, but felt he then struggled more as “I also ran a lot in traffic, which probably also didn't help”.
He added: “But we were just not faster than the cars around us, and then you just get stuck in that DRS train.
“As a team, we maximised the performance today. Naturally, if you start P1 with the pace that we had, I think you're fighting for the win, regardless. But starting P11, I knew that it was always going to be a damage-limitation race.
“Of course, looking at the championship it was still a positive day – I extended my lead, where it could have also easily been calculating losses. So, from that side of course, it's a positive day.”
Verstappen also felt, “having an engine penalty, I think if all of the cars had that their race would also look very different”.
“So, it's not very fair to fully look at my race coming from P11,” he continued. “Because if you just start with them, the race is very different.”
Verstappen left Spa feeling pleased Red Bull’s aggressive pitstop timing choices in his two services on Sunday got him ahead of Norris, but wondered if the team making a better tyre allocation call earlier in the weekend could have got him higher than fifth on-the-road.
The Red Bull drivers were each left with two sets of mediums and just one set of the best race tyre, the hard, compared to the reverse for the Mercedes and McLaren drivers, with Leclerc able to pick from two new mediums and two new hards.
“I think today an [extra] hard tyre would have helped,” Verstappen reflected. “Of course, George won the race on a one-stop, but I don't think we had the tyre wear or tyre life to do that anyway.
“So yeah, also there’s a few things to analyse, but as a team today we did a good job. We definitely did the right thing with the strategy to try and be a bit aggressive initially to try and get ahead of a few [rivals] and it made my race a little bit better.
“But then too many cars where we got stuck with.”
