Max Verstappen praised Red Bull team-mate Isack Hadjar for delivering him “a tow and a half” in Formula 1 qualifying at the Belgian Grand Prix, which he credited with helping him towards his front-row start for tomorrow’s race.
With Hadjar consigned to starting at the back of the grid on Sunday, having taken a series of new power unit components (primarily engine, turbo, and exhaust) outside of his allocation, Red Bull ensured regardless that it had Hadjar available in Q3 to assist Verstappen.
The team opted to use Hadjar’s slipstream in the final sector, through the Blanchimont sweep and on the approach to the final chicane. On the first attempt, Hadjar needed to back off out of Turn 15 to allow Verstappen to close in and soak up the tow, but the second attempt appeared to be more effective.
This time, Verstappen got much closer to Hadjar and it initially looked too close for comfort between the two drivers, but the four-time champion nailed his braking point for the chicane and briefly moved up to the top of the Q3 order. Kimi Antonelli then pressed home an advantage and collected pole by three tenths, but Verstappen lauded the team’s efforts over the radio regardless.
“Overall the whole weekend the balance of the car has been quite decent,” Verstappen explained. “I think we’re just a bit slow in the straight, but yeah the car has been in the window, just trying to fine-tune a little bit and yeah it was the same in qualifying.
“At one point we were a bit stuck in terms of how much more lap time you can extract out of it, to be honest, because every lap that I did was a little bit faster, but yeah at one point I mean flat is flat, so there’s no more time to gain in corners.
“That’s something maybe we have to review, maybe we’re too easy flat, I don’t know.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Andy Hone/ LAT Images via Getty Images
“But the car was good and then of course Isack in Q3 helped me a lot with the tow in the final sector, that’s why of course I’m sitting here, otherwise it could have easily been P6.
“The gaps behind was so close, so thank you to him for that – I think as a team we did everything we could.”
Across his second Q3 lap, Verstappen had already made a gain of 0.15s with a better exit from Turn 9. Allied to the better-executed tow usage on his second effort, this overall contributed to the 0.3s gain over his first lap from the final qualifying stage.
It was commented upon in the post-qualifying press conference that the two Red Bull drivers had looked worryingly close on the final lap, but Verstappen joked that he would have “just pushed” Hadjar along to finish his final lap.
“I was flat out, I would have just pushed him,” he quipped. “But he did amazing, I initially thought ‘oh my god it’s too close’, but then actually it worked out well to the last corner. It was close, but I trusted him.”
Hadjar explained that the first tow effort hadn’t gone to plan due to the energy deployment being “confused” by him backing off ahead of the final sector, which made the slipstream range much harder to judge.
Isack Hadjar, Red Bull Racing
Photo by: Marc Fleury
On the second effort, the Frenchman feared that he wasn’t going to be able to give Verstappen full assistance through the final sector, as he’d run out of energy on that occasion.
“What’s difficult is to guess what the engine is going to give you,” the Frenchman explained. “Because once you stop out of Turn 14 and to deliver the power, the engine is a bit confused because you’ve stopped for no reason, and the software is confused.
“So on that first attempt in Q3 I had way too much power, so I pulled away from him.
“And the second attempt I didn’t have enough, so if anything he was catching me, and I couldn’t tow him the whole way, so that was very difficult to judge.”
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– The Autosport.com Team
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