Verstappen forced “over the limit” to hold off “frustrated” Piastri in Belgium F1 sprint

Max Verstappen says he had to forget about tyre usage and drive “over the limit” to resist the faster McLaren of Oscar Piastri during Formula 1’s Spa sprint race.

Verstappen passed polesitter Piastri on lap one, slipstreaming past the Australian championship leader on the long run up the Kemmel Straight and into Les Combes, which he deemed as his only shot at winning the 15-lap contest.

“It worked out really well,” Verstappen said. “That’s the only real opportunity, of course, that you’re going to get against them and we got it into Turn 5. Then I knew it was going to be very tough to keep them behind.

“I was just playing cat and mouse with DRS, battery usage and basically the whole race [the gap] was within seven tenths, so I couldn’t really afford to make big mistakes.”

Piastri piled on the pressure in the intrinsically quicker McLaren but, apart from one slip-up on lap 11 that gave Piastri his best chance to attack, Verstappen didn’t budge as he admitted to having to drive over the limit to keep his lead, which also resulted in him struggling with brake pressure.

“Well, basically you’re keeping faster cars behind, so you have to drive over the limit of what you think is possible,” Verstappen explained of his worried radio messages about the brakes.

“Tyre management is out of the window, so that is what’s making it really difficult. I’m just doing 15 qualifying laps to try and keep them behind on the track where tyre management is important.

“I had one tiny lock-up in the last corner, but apart from that it was a great result to keep them behind and to have a win here in Spa for me.

“Of course, it’s a sprint win, but still it counts and I’m very happy with what we did out there.”

Piastri vows to avoid “frustrating” sprint repeat on Sunday

Piastri was worried before the race about Verstappen slipstreaming past him, labelling Spa one of the worst circuits to start from pole, and the Australian was proven right on Saturday.

“Pretty much, yeah – I tried my best to snake my way through the straights and not give too much of a tow, but I just didn’t have enough straight-line speed,” he explained.

“And then obviously I didn’t have enough straight-line speed for the next 15 laps either. It’s still a good result, still good points and pretty happy with it, but it’s just obviously a bit frustrating that I couldn’t get past.”

McLaren’s priority will be to avoid a repeat in Sunday’s grand prix, with the prospect of rain adding to F1 engineers’ set-up headaches. But the conditions could perhaps also offer McLaren a helping hand against the Red Bulls, which appear to be forced into a lower downforce set-up to achieve competitive lap times overall, much like at the British Grand Prix.

“The weather is looking pretty bad for tomorrow, which obviously means you probably don’t want to take off too much wing,” Piastri added. “But I don’t really want to repeat the sprint we’ve just had, so we’ll have a look and see what we can do.”

Much like Piastri was stuck behind Verstappen, Norris was a close spectator in third after having to re-pass Charles Leclerc.

“Obviously, a bit of fun at the start trying to overtake Charles – maybe I could have positioned myself a little bit better, but otherwise it was a bit too difficult to get past Max,” Norris said.

“Max drove a good race and I wasn’t going to get past anyone unless Oscar got past Max.

“Not a lot we could do on a day like today. Obviously, I was hoping for a bit of battling or something, but the Red Bull was just too quick on a straight for us to catch up. So, maybe there are some tweaks for us to make into qualifying.”