Max Verstappen blasts FIA for 'ruining' Belgian GP with one key decision
Max Verstappen slammed the Formula 1 race director for his "very cautious" approach to managing conditions at the Belgian Grand Prix. The race was delayed for almost 90 minutes when heavy rain hit the Circuit Spa-Francorchamps and the FIA decided to red flag proceedings after the formation lap.
That first lap took place at 3pm local time as scheduled, when the rain was still pouring. And it soon became clear that visibility was very poor as even Lando Norris, behind only the safety car on pole position, could barely see beyond the spray being thrown up into the air.
And so race director Rui Marques too the decision to abort the start and call for all cars to return to the pit lane. Once he had done that, it was clear that the race would not resume for some time as more heavy rain was on the way.
Eventually things got going, around 90 minutes after the originally scheduled start time. And it was perfect timing for Oscar Piastri who snatched the lead from Norris on the first lap after a rolling start and consolidated that position to win the race.
Verstappen finished fourth, the same place he started, and was left to wonder what might have been had they been allowed to race in the more treacherous conditions, as he made it clear he would have preferred a bolder approach from race control.
The Dutchman fumed: "We should have started miles earlier, an hour earlier. A bit of a shame. They took a very cautious approach which we spoke about after Silverstone, to be a little bit more cautious.
"But, for me, this was then the other extreme. It just ruined a nice, classic wet race as well. We either still try to push for a proper wet race, or we say, 'You know what, let's just stop racing in the wet and wait for it to be dry. But that's not what you want, right?
"We can still have some really cool wet racing, like we showed at Silverstone." But the race, in the end, was mostly in dry conditions and Verstappen could not find the pace he needed to reel in Charles Leclerc, who spent the whole race successfully defending the final podium place.
Verstappen had won the Sprint race a day earlier, able to hold off the McLarens by driving flat out over 15 laps. But tyre degradation proved to be tricky again over a full race distance and that is what he wants his team to address going forward.
He said: "The problems we have in the car in tyre management are still there, it doesn't matter what rear wing you put on the car and it also hurt us today in the race. We did the best we could, we made some changes and it was much nicer around the lap. We know what we have to work on but, unfortunately, it was not that straightforward to fix."
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