{"id":809600,"date":"2026-07-19T05:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T05:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/809600\/"},"modified":"2026-07-19T05:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T05:29:11","slug":"what-to-watch-for-in-the-belgian-grand-prix-slipstreaming-safety-cars-and-verstappen-vs-mercedes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/809600\/","title":{"rendered":"What To Watch For in the Belgian Grand Prix: Slipstreaming, Safety Cars, and Verstappen vs Mercedes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">From Max Verstappen&#8217;s threat off the line to the Mercedes internal battle, and from two fast drivers out of position to the potential for plenty of race-changing moments, here are five things to look out for when racing gets underway on Sunday at Spa-Francorchamps.<\/p>\n<p>1. Slipstreaming at the start<\/p>\n<p class=\"typography-module_body-s-regular__ul7F5 typography-module_md_body-m-regular__d9VRg typography-module_lg_body-l-regular__dPa5z\">Taking pole position at the Belgian Grand Prix is a satisfying result for any driver, given the challenge of putting together a quick lap around the iconic circuit. But it doesn\u2019t always lead to the most comfortable start of a race.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Max Verstappen&#8217;s threat off the line to the Mercedes internal battle, and from two fast drivers out&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":809601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":["post-809600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=809600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/809600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/809601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=809600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=809600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=809600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}