Max Verstappen insists he and Purple Bull may have been Formulation 1 2024 Belgian Grand Prix victory contenders, had he began from increased up the grid at Spa.
Verstappen topped qualifying for the fourth 12 months in a row in Belgium, however for the third successive race on the venue he needed to drop down the grid on account of penalties for altering automotive elements past these allowed within the guidelines – having wanted a fifth inner combustion unit of the 2024 marketing campaign.
From eleventh on the grid, Verstappen shortly labored his method to the tail of the frontrunning pack.
He then undercut distant title rival Lando Norris on the first pitstops and pushed on to remain forward of the chasing McLaren as they climbed by the falling Sergio Perez within the different RB20 and in the end got here up simply in need of passing Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc in fourth.
Verstappen reckoned “the stability of the automotive wasn’t too unhealthy all the time within the first few laps”, however felt he then struggled extra as “I additionally ran so much in visitors, which in all probability additionally did not assist”.
He added: “However we have been simply not sooner than the vehicles round us, and then you definately simply get caught in that DRS practice.
“As a workforce, we maximised the efficiency at present. Naturally, in case you begin P1 with the tempo that we had, I feel you are preventing for the win, regardless. However beginning P11, I knew that it was all the time going to be a damage-limitation race.
“After all, trying on the championship it was nonetheless a constructive day – I prolonged my lead, the place it may have additionally simply been calculating losses. So, from that aspect after all, it is a constructive day.”
Max Verstappen, Purple Bull Racing
Photograph by: Erik Junius
Verstappen additionally felt, “having an engine penalty, I feel if all the vehicles had that their race would additionally look very totally different”.
“So, it isn’t particularly reasonable to totally take a look at my race coming from P11,” he continued. “As a result of in case you simply begin with them, the race may be very totally different.”
Verstappen left Spa feeling happy Purple Bull’s aggressive pitstop timing selections in his two companies on Sunday bought him forward of Norris, however puzzled if the workforce making a greater tyre allocation name earlier within the weekend may have gotten him increased than fifth.
The Purple Bull drivers have been every left with two units of mediums and only one set of the perfect race tyre, the onerous, in comparison with the reverse for the Mercedes and McLaren drivers, with Leclerc in a position to decide from two new mediums and two new hards.
“I feel at present an [extra] onerous tyre would have helped,” Verstappen mirrored. “After all, George received the race on a one-stop, however I do not suppose we had the tyre put on or tyre life to do this anyway.
“So yeah, additionally there’s a couple of issues to analyse, however as a workforce at present we did a very good job. We undoubtedly did the suitable factor with the technique to attempt to be a bit aggressive initially to attempt to get forward of some [rivals] and it made my race a bit of bit higher.
“However then too many vehicles the place we bought caught with.”
