Why Max Verstappen has joined the greats with Belgian GP win

Max Verstappen’s fabulous Belgian GP win from 14th on the grid puts him in good company. He joins Jim Clark and Michael Schumacher in a select group who have won at Spa having started outside the top 10.

Clark did it exactly 60 years ago to win his first grand prix in the ground-breaking Lotus 25, the first of four consecutive victories there by the great Scot, who hated the place. The challenge of driving it might have been enjoyable, but he was less keen on the ditches, barbed wire, telegraph poles and even houses that lined its then 8.7-mile lap, with Spa’s variable micro climate meaning the possibility of encountering localised portions of wet track.

Back then of course, there were no engine penalties for using too many power units – they’d have needed applying almost every race! – but Clark’s problematic Coventry-Climax V8 had intervened on its own and limited him to 12th on the grid. In the race, it was Graham Hill’s turn to suffer, his BRM spluttering its way through most of the afternoon as Clark, with a new motor, drove through the field to beat him into second place by just over 44sec.

In ’95, we had one of those wet/drying qualifying sessions where run timing was a lottery. The two championship protagonists, Damon Hill and Michael Schumacher, qualified eighth and 16th respectively – the only time that year when Johnny Herbert managed to outqualify Schumacher incidentally.

Then, as last Sunday with Verstappen, the big question was whether or not Michael could win from back there. The race conditions gave him a bit of a leg-up. After David Coulthard’s early gearbox problem, Hill worked his way to the front, with Schumacher catching him. When it rained, Hill elected to pit for wets and Michael stayed out on his slicks, figuring that it was a brief rain period and that Spa dries quickly.

Hill caught him and it all got a bit spiky. We were treated to an outbraking contest at the end of the Kemmel Straight with Schumacher winning it on slicks, versus Damon’s wets! Which didn’t make Damon look too hot! But what the TV pictures didn’t show was that track conditions were on the turn, a dry line was emerging, and Schumacher was being physical in claiming it. He would later be given a one-race suspended ban for his physicality, with Damon pointing out that F1 cars weren’t karts and he didn’t appreciate being driven into. Schumacher shrugged it off, pointing out that they weren’t going particularly fast at the time. A defence he certainly couldn’t use against a stern-looking Mika Häkkinen five years on after one of the all-time great overtakes by the Finn.

After a safety car later in the race, Hill and Schumacher found themselves running 1-2 on wets after more rain, but it all fizzled out when Hill had to pit for a stop-go penalty after speeding in the pits, Michael getting over the line 19.4sec to the good after Hill reclaimed his second place from Martin Brundle’s Ligier on the last lap.

Verstappen’s feat is probably the most impressive of the lot. The conditions were stable and nobody had any engine problems. And yet, he carved through the field like a hot knife through butter, nobody in remotely the same league. From first thing Friday to Sunday afternoon, it was a Senna-esque performance.

You had to laugh. Can anyone understand this sport? Just before the summer break, Mercedes took pole position at a colder than expected Budapest with a car that was renowned for struggling to generate tyre temperature. Both George Russell and Mercedes boss Toto Wolff were delighted, but hadn’t a clue why.

Even if Verstappen and Red Bull had hit back with a fine win from 10th on the grid in Budapest, the sages were saying, ‘Wait until we get to Spa, where F1’s new floor technical directive comes into effect, delayed from Paul Ricard‘. There was even speculation that it could reset the pecking order significantly enough to have Mercedes shooting for victory.

And so, we move on to the Spa qualifying sheet:

1. Max Verstappen Red Bull, 1min 43.665sec
2. Carlos Sainz Ferrari, 1min 44.297sec
…
7. Lewis Hamilton Mercedes, 1min 45.503sec

There you go, Lewis, just the 1.9sec off the pace – a golden opportunity to continue your record of winning a GP in every year of your F1 career – go for it!

This was 2022 F1, where the Red Bull and the Ferrari have seldom been separated by more than a couple of hundredths in qualifying, with the Ferrari often the better proposition over a single lap. Sainz and Sergio Perez were nip-and-tuck at Spa but Verstappen looked like he was driving in a different formula.