{"id":27495,"date":"2025-07-27T09:01:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T09:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/27495\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T09:01:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T09:01:11","slug":"im-powerless-against-mclaren-in-belgian-gp-even-more-so-in-the-rain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/27495\/","title":{"rendered":"I’m powerless against McLaren in Belgian GP \u2013 even more so in the rain"},"content":{"rendered":"

Max Verstappen<\/a> fears he won\u2019t be able to threaten the dominant McLarens in Formula 1\u2019s Belgian Grand Prix, with his Red Bull car expected to struggle \u2013 even more so in the rain.<\/p>\n

Verstappen won Saturday’s dry sprint race, having snatched the lead away from Oscar Piastri<\/a> on the Kemmel Straight before making the most of his straightline speed to defend his advantage throughout the contest.<\/p>\n

However, the Dutchman expects to struggle more over a full race distance \u2013 especially after he qualified fourth in a \u201cnot very good\u201d Q3 performance, 0.341 seconds down on pole, behind Ferrari<\/a>\u2019s Charles Leclerc<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we should be fighting for P3, realistically speaking,\u201d Verstappen said. \u201cIn dry conditions, anyway.<\/p>\n

\u201cRain can always cause a bit of chaos, but then McLaren<\/a> normally has an even bigger advantage. So P3 is the highest achievable position. That was actually the case today in the sprint race, they just didn’t manage to get past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

It has been raining near-continuously at Spa-Francorchamps since around 6am on Sunday morning, with the precipitation unlikely to relent enough for any dry track running today.<\/p>\n

Verstappen\u2019s main worry is Red Bull\u2019s tendency to overheat \u2013 and consequently degrade \u2013 wet-weather rubber much more quickly than McLaren. This applies to the full-wet compound, which is seldom used, and intermediate tyres.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe McLaren is even stronger in the wet than in the dry, because the overheating is even bigger of course on an intermediate, so they have that really well under control,\u201d he insisted.<\/p>\n

\"Oscar <\/p>\n

Oscar Piastri, McLaren and Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing, at Silverstone<\/p>\n

Photo by: Glenn Dunbar \/ LAT Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time we’ve driven in the rain, we haven’t really had a chance. That won’t suddenly change tomorrow.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are still miles ahead of us in terms of tyre management. I mean, if you have that, you’re almost unbeatable.\u201d<\/p>\n

To compound Verstappen\u2019s situation, Red Bull\u2019s upgrades this weekend, albeit not ineffective, have seemingly failed to improve the RB21\u2019s tricky behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they work, but it still doesn’t give me the balance I want to really attack a corner,\u201d he lamented. \u201cThose problems remain the same.\u201d Hence a suboptimal qualifying lap with \u201cso much wheelspin\u201d at the exit of Eau Rouge, and therefore some work still cut out for Red Bull\u2019s engineers.<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Verstappen\u2019s main rival for the podium, Leclerc, wasn\u2019t feeling too optimistic himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t think [rain] is a strength for our car at the moment,\u201d the Ferrari driver said. \u201cWe are really struggling.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut, having said that, every weekend is different. We’ll learn from the past and see what’s possible tomorrow. I will only be able to tell after the first few laps to see where we are. But I’ll try to look forward before looking in the mirrors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additional reporting by Ronald Vording<\/p>\n

In this article<\/p>\n

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Subscribe to news alerts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Max Verstappen fears he won\u2019t be able to threaten the dominant McLarens in Formula 1\u2019s Belgian Grand Prix,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27496,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[3272,49,48,578,15863,576,577,1885,590,2190,82],"class_list":["post-27495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-belgian-gp","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-f1-belgian-grand-prix-2025","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-max-verstappen","tag-mclaren","tag-red-bull-racing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27495\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}