Why Verstappen has the upper hand for Spa’s recovery race

We knew that when Charles Leclerc’s Ferrari agonisingly went up in smoke in Spain and Azerbaijan that more pain was to come. It wasn’t just the possible 50 points that he had lost in the moment as he was twice eliminated from the lead of the race. The turbo and MGU-H that let go at Barcelona and then the internal combustion engine which self-immolated at Baku would all need to be replaced. As a consequence, it was clear that he would eventually exceed the maximum number of parts permitted and so grid penalties became an inevitability.

Leclerc served his first hit for the Canadian Grand Prix to line up 19th. But he recovered soundly enough to claim fifth. However, his shunt from first place three races later in France gave the back end of his F1-75 a hefty jolt to result in a new gearbox next time out in Hungary and taking him up to the limit.

Those three headline incidents have now combined to inflict yet more start-line suffering. The Monegasque goes to bed on Friday night in Belgium already knowing he’ll drop 15 grid spots. Admittedly, it could be worse as Ferrari has been clever. By the letter of the law, “a penalty” (singular) and not “penalties” that results in anything more than a 15-place grid drop automatically sends a driver straight to the back.

But Ferrari has capitalised on the arguably sloppy wording. It has split the reprimands so that none on their own surpass the magic number. As such, Leclerc will start ahead of Esteban Ocon and Lando Norris, who are also taking on a host of shiny new parts. Nevertheless, Leclerc will find himself in strange territory towards the back, where he’ll bump into the driver who has picked up the pieces each time he has failed to finish.

Max Verstappen will start the Belgian Grand Prix with an entirely new power unit (ICE, MGU-H, MGU-K and turbo) and gearbox. With the defending champion, as a result, well over the magic number of 15, he is bang to rights for the first race after the summer break.

Charles Leclerc will face the prospect of a charge from the rear of the Belgian Grand Prix grid

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

The Dutch ace holds a mighty 80 points over Leclerc ahead of the nine-race run to the end of the season. That makes him seemingly a certainty for the 2022 crown. It might not now be the blockbuster title fight many had anticipated and hoped for when the pair sparred wheel-to-wheel in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia most notably. And perhaps this weekend's qualifying battle is now a touch diminished since it’s a formality that Verstappen will start behind. But Leclerc must still limit the damage as far as possible, even if the bragging rights might only return 15th.

The bad news for Leclerc, however, is that Verstappen appears to be almost nine tenths faster over a flying lap. After Carlos Sainz topped first practice over his Ferrari team-mate and Verstappen was 0.217s off in third, the lead Red Bull came to the fore for the hour of FP2. Verstappen ended the qualifying simulations as the only driver to break into the 1m45s, setting a best time of 0.507s to sit 0.862s clear of Leclerc.

Overall FP2 order

While the RB18 has that entirely new engine to mean it is as healthy and powerful as can be, that remains a colossal difference. As the longest circuit on the calendar at 4.35 miles, the gap is exaggerated for Spa. But data Autosport has seen shows that Verstappen and the car remain equal parts devastating.

He is only a tenth ahead into Les Combes, giving a fairly clear read on the little gains the rebadged Honda engine is giving him over the Ferraris on the Kemmel Straight. It has a competitive, if not class-leading top speed. Meanwhile, the F1-75s are equipped with their low-drag rear-wing - something they have run with readily since Montreal. But come Pouhon, just five corners later, Verstappen has gained another four tenths, having cleaved his way through the slower second sector. For the medium-speed direction changes, Autosport understands the Ferrari is more effective. But everywhere else (Les Fagnes and the Bus Stop chicane most of all), it’s the Red Bull that’s the pick of the bunch.

Max Verstappen put in a dominant flying lap to top second practice

Photo by: Andy Hone / Motorsport Images

Of his near nine-tenth cushion over Leclerc, Verstappen is doing most of the heavy lifting in that second sector - setting the best time of anyone by six tenths. For the run to the line, he’s able to extract another quarter of a second. These margins come on a weekend when the RB18 isn’t sporting any major upgrades to have suddenly given it a significant boost.

The indications from the qualifying simulations of second practice, therefore, heavily point to Verstappen setting the pace outright on Saturday. Just that it’s not going to give him pole position or the leg up on Leclerc in return. Fortunately for him, however, the early signs are that his race pace can also be enough to pass and then keep Leclerc behind as the pair attempt to work their way into the points in the grand prix.

According to Autosport’s calculations, when running on a set of used medium C3 compound Pirellis in the final third of FP2 for a brief race simulation, Verstappen’s average lap time was 1m51.867s. On the same rubber, Sainz was 0.317s in arrears on a 1m52.184s - albeit the Spaniard reckoned the set-up tweaks between the sessions had made the car worse. For reference, Leclerc levelled out on a 1m52.040s, but he was running with a scrubbed set of the theoretically faster softs.

Race stint simulation order

*damp FP2 conditions prevented Alfa Romeo, AlphaTauri and Aston Martin from completing race run.

Verstappen said: “From the first laps we did today I could feel that the car was working well, so that’s positive. Not much really changed throughout the sessions, we just looked at how we could set up the car in the best possible way and I think as soon as we went out, the car was looking pretty good.

“Of course, there are always things that we want to fine tune, like the balance, but we can work on that. When it started to rain, I of course didn’t push as much, hopefully today was the worst of it so we should have some cleaner sessions.”

Friday's running was curtailed by rain showers and tricky conditions

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

There are plenty of caveats that come with these numbers, though. There’s the usual health warning that engine modes and fuel loads are not known, which always have the power to exaggerate or undersell the difference in pace. Then there’s those factors that are specific to events at Spa. Drizzle in the final six minutes of FP2 forced those race simulations to be abandoned. Three teams didn’t do any kind of representative long running, while those that did were limited to between just four and seven laps in most cases.

The truncated track time also robbed a comparison of tyres, meaning there’s little to go on at this stage to determine the pace offset between each compound. Verstappen gained 1.2s across the range, Leclerc 1.6s. Lewis Hamilton’s soft and hard laps were split by 2s, and George Russell’s 2.2s. What is suggested, though, is that the white-walled hard is slowest by more than is usual or was anticipated.

Deteriorating conditions also meant there was not enough running for the tyres to truly settle in a temperature window to observe their performance over a full stint. Verstappen said his medium fronts were gone after only three laps, having run slightly earlier in the session than Leclerc.

"Not much really changed throughout the sessions, we just looked at how we could set up the car in the best possible way and I think as soon as we went out, the car was looking pretty good" Max Verstappen

The Mercedes duo, by contrast, battled to get their hards up to temperature at all - both locking into La Source. For Spa, at least, the long-run data is much less valuable than we have come to expect. A more favourable, warmer weather forecast for Saturday and Sunday only muddies the water further.

With Mercedes at sea - and in need of a Hungary-spec overnight turnaround that returned Russell his first pole - and Sergio Perez conspicuous by his absence from the lead times, albeit caught out by traffic and the weather, Ferrari isn’t a bad bet for victory in Belgium.

But that challenge will surely be propped up by Sainz, who is not set for any grid penalties. Should he therefore run off into the distance for a lonely afternoon, the TV cameras are set to spend a great deal of the race focusing on the battle back through the pack. There it seems, Verstappen currently has the greater reasons to be optimistic about his chances of a remarkable recovery.

Verstappen appears set to be in the best position to recover from his grid penalty on Sunday

Photo by: Mark Sutton / Motorsport Images