Kings of Belgium: Verstappen and Schumacher's similar Spa genius

Before explaining that, there’s some relevant background to understand. Even once Verstappen took a five-place grid penalty for a gearbox change, no-one was betting against him – he’d taken a dominant win here last year from 14th on the grid, after all.

As we discussed in the race analysis here on Monday, the circuit is perfectly configured to reward the best of both the Red Bull RB19 and Max Verstappen. Certain demands of car and driver are amplified in importance here. Aerodynamic efficiency – how much downforce you can retain whilst stripping back drag – is absolutely king here, with two sectors of largely flat-out running but the other demanding high-speed downforce for the long downhill sweeps of Rivage, Pouhon, Fagnes and the Stavelot approach. The RB19 generates a bigger proportion of its total downforce from the underbody than the others and less from the wings. Underbody downforce is about three times as efficient as over-body downforce in terms of the drag created. So even though the RB19’s aero efficiency helps it everywhere, Spa really helps it.

But that trade-off means there is also extra reward available for a certain calibre of driver, one who can live with a high-speed neutral to oversteer balance. Which even among F1 drivers is rare. F1 cars naturally want to understeer at low speeds and oversteer at high. The front/rear wing level is then used to give the best compromise between the two, but each driver has their own preference. If you can be relaxed about a neutral or mild oversteer balance at high speed, there is big lap time reward from having way less understeer into the slow corners. That reward is massive here.

I’ve watched both Michael Schumacher and Max Verstappen close-up in the raw, doing qualifying simulations through those middle sector sweeps and they are uncannily similar. With their cars clearly set up with a nervous balance, they require only the mildest of turn in and are then on a knife edge for the rest of the corner, appearing ready to fly off the road if there’s even a sniff of extra input. But they would sit there, serene on that knife-edge, like it was a big wide plank. Other cars would come by with a shallow bit of reassuring understeer, allowing the drivers to push on through the corner and be bold with the throttle. Michael’s throttle inputs here, just liked Max’s today, were always delicate and progressive; the speed came with the momentum on entry, the commitment, the “jumping up onto the high wire” as Mark Donohue would have phrased it. The others were balancing on the high wire but had climbed carefully onto it. Michael could jump straight onto it. As can Max.

But last weekend everyone’s preparations were compromised by the rain washing out practice and denying them crucial set-up time. This had happened in ’94 too. So Max’s car wasn’t in an ideal state of balance for the race, when loaded up with 100kg or more of fuel. Not only was it carrying a little too much understeer for his tastes, but the ride height wasn’t ideal either. Rear ride height is a crucial component of performance at any track, but the challenge at Spa is magnified because of the compressive forces through Eau Rouge, vertical loads smashing the floor into the track at very high speed.

That’s what had caught out Schumacher in ’94 (though not through Eau Rouge, as it was emasculated by a chicane that year), the first year of the underbody plank, brought in in the wake of the Imola tragedies to physically impose a minimum ride height. This was the first time it had been used at Spa. Back then qualifying took place over both Friday and Saturday and your best time from either session counted for your grid slot. Friday qualifying was held on a wet but drying track (much like this year) and Rubens Barrichello had been best placed over the line to benefit most from the improving surface. He duly put his Jordan-Hart on Friday pole, a first for both driver and team. Schumacher was only second. Barrichello’s pole stood when Saturday’s qualifying session was completely rained out.

The track was pretty much dry for the first time as the cars went out for the Sunday morning warm-up session. Schumacher found that his Benetton was grounding out too much now that the loads were so much higher, even without the usual compressive loads of Eau Rouge. He asked that its ride height be raised 0.5mm for the race. It wasn’t enough.

Barrichello led away but Schumacher slipstreamed by on the Kemmel Straight and pulled out a big lead. Later in the race the Williams pair David Coulthard and Damon Hill gave chase and even closed him down, but the gap was never smaller than 9.6sec before Schumacher began pulling away again, totally in control. He won by over 14sec from Hill. Except he didn’t – because he was excluded from the results for the plank depth infringement. It had exceeded the permitted 10% wear.

Fast-forward 29 years and Verstappen was already aware on race day that his ride height might be marginal. Because in winning the previous days Sprint race, loaded with only a quarter as much fuel and on a damp track he was already grounding out through there. This possibility had obviously been discussed with his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase and they seemed to have agreed a code to remind Max to lift through Eau Rouge, minimising the battering the plank was taking: “Use your head,” said in the airy tone of reminder, not admonishment.

In-car footage from any of the drivers shows how much plank dust is ground into the track at this point, light brown lines grained into black, score sheets of downforce. Easing off the gas just before that point would give the plank an easier time – and that’s what he was doing even in the Sprint race. The following Oscar Piastri, probably running a bigger ride height on the McLaren, was flat-out through there from quite early.

That ‘use your head’ reminder would be issued repeatedly by Lambiase, usually just before La Source, as Max was about to charge down the hill to Eau Rouge. Like that, with performance through Eau Rouge compromised, he still took the field apart, winning by over 22sec from team mate Sergio Perez (who was also lifting). There had been another telling exchange between Lambiase and Verstappen towards the end of his first stint.

“If you want a bit more stability in the high speed, Max, it’s display…”

“No, no, I’m struggling for front.”

Followed a couple of laps later by:

“Front wing update for the next stint please, Max.”

“I need two clicks more.”

Two more clicks of front wing to banish that damned understeer which robs him of some of his natural advantage. Even if it looked loose to Lambiase on the data. The scoresheet of genius.

You can guarantee that Pat Symonds and Schumacher would have been having similar conversations back in ’94. Last Sunday, Verstappen’s plank was fine. Because they had ‘used their heads’.