I’m powerless against McLaren in F1 Belgian GP – even more so in the rain

Max Verstappen fears he won’t be able to threaten McLaren in Formula 1’s Belgian Grand Prix, with his Red Bull expected to struggle – even more so in the rain.

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

However, the Dutchman expects to struggle more over a full race distance – especially after he qualified fourth in a “not very good” Q3 performance, 0.341 seconds down on pole, behind Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

“I think we should be fighting for P3, realistically speaking,” Verstappen said. “In dry conditions, anyway.

“Rain can always cause a bit of chaos, but then McLaren 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.”

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.

Verstappen’s main worry is Red Bull’s tendency to overheat – and consequently degrade – wet-weather rubber much more quickly than McLaren. This applies to the full-wet compound, which is seldom used, and intermediate tyres.

“The 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,” he insisted.

“Every time we’ve driven in the rain, we haven’t really had a chance. That won’t suddenly change tomorrow.

“They are still miles ahead of us in terms of tyre management. I mean, if you have that, you’re almost unbeatable.”

To compound Verstappen’s situation, Red Bull’s upgrades this weekend, albeit not ineffective, have seemingly failed to improve the RB21’s tricky behaviour.

“I think they work, but it still doesn’t give me the balance I want to really attack a corner,” he lamented. “Those problems remain the same.” Hence a suboptimal qualifying lap with “so much wheelspin” at the exit of Eau Rouge, and therefore some work still cut out for Red Bull’s engineers.

Meanwhile, Verstappen’s main rival for the podium, Leclerc, wasn’t feeling too optimistic himself.

“I don’t think [rain] is a strength for our car at the moment,” the Ferrari driver said. “We are really struggling.

“But, 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.”

Additional reporting by Ronald Vording