Verstappen Says Focus is on Race with Grid Penalty

Max Verstappen says that Oracle Red Bull Racing will focus on the race rather than qualifying at the 2024 Belgian Grand Prix.

Verstappen had a dream start to his weekend, dominating Free Practice One by over half a second and setting the pace on both tyre compounds – softs and the hards. However, the tide turned in the second practice session of the day as McLaren F1 Team found pace and pushed the Dutchman down to third. With a ten-place grid penalty looming on race day for taking his fifth Internal Combustion Engine of the season, Verstappen faces an uphill battle to convert strong pace into a race win or podium, despite having overcome a similar penalty to win here previously.

The pressure is on Verstappen – he hasn’t won since Spain. The three-time world champion’s lead in the Drivers Championship has been cut down by Lando Norris in the last few races and the grid penalty could see his lead cut even shorter this weekend.

Verstappen said: “We tried quite a few things because it’s typically Spa where you have sector one and sector three where you want the top speed but it’s still a very long middle sector where you want cornering speed and it’s still very tricky to find the right balance,” he said afterwards.

“So, we are trying a few things to see what is better and we’ll look at it of course now in the data and analyse. We started out quite positive today, second practice was perhaps not quite as good. 

“We have a few things to look at, you know, with all the changes we made as well and hopefully we can put it all together for the race especially as I know at the moment I have to start a bit back with my penalty for the engine and try to optimise it.”

“Naturally you always want a good qualifying but the most important is the race so that’s what we’ll focus on.”