#FACTS AND STATS: Win 12 for Red Bull heralds most successful season start in F1 history

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FACTS AND STATS: Win 12 for Red Bull heralds most successful season start in F1 history

The records just keep on falling to Red Bull and Max Verstappen, who showed no sign of releasing their vice-like grip on the 2023 titles in Belgium on Sunday. There were, however, some notable numbers for plenty of others on the grid – here’s our round-up from Spa. • Verstappen won by 17.841s. Last year he won this race by 22.305s. • It was Verstappen’s eighth consecutive championship race win, just one short of the all-time record held by Sebastian Vettel from 2013. RACE REPORT: Verstappen charges to Belgian GP win as Red Bull bag 1-2 finish • Prior to today, Verstappen had never won from sixth on the grid. It means he ties Fernando Alonso's record of nine winning grid positions. • With 314 points so far in 2023, Verstappen has already exceeded Vettel's championship-winning points totals in 2010 (256 points) and 2012 (281 points). • Today was Verstappen’s 13th consecutive podium finish (the fourth-longest streak in history). • Verstappen will arrive at his home race next month having not lost a Grand Prix or a Sprint event in almost four months (since Azerbaijan on April 30th). • In finishing one-two for their 12th win of the year, Red Bull broke the record for most victories from the beginning of a single season (McLaren won the first 11 races in 1988). Leclerc and Ferrari were back on the podium in Belgium • It was Red Bull's fifth one-two finish of the season and ties their best-ever season total, set in 2022. • Red Bull finished one-two in Belgium for the second year in a row. • P2 was Perez’s best finish since the Miami Grand Prix, seven races ago. RACE START: Enjoy the action from Spa as Perez passes pole-sitter Leclerc while Piastri and Sainz collide • It was Perez’s 33rd career podium, surpassing Daniel Ricciardo's career total. • With P3, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took his third podium finish of the year. • Leclerc has now failed to win his last nine starts from first on the grid. • Perez finished 4.5s further behind Verstappen today than he did when finishing second behind his team mate in last year's Belgian Grand Prix. DRIVER OF THE DAY: Flawless Verstappen gets your vote after imperious Spa win • After finishing P4 for Mercedes, Lewis Hamilton has scored in every race this season. • He also set the fastest lap of the race, meaning he is now only one point behind Aston Martin's Fernando Alonso in the battle for third in the drivers' championship. • Alonso finished fifth in Belgium for the second year in a row. • Mercedes’ George Russell finished sixth for the second consecutive weekend, having never finished sixth before in his entire F1 career. Yuki Tsunoda - still the only man to score for AlphaTauri in 2023 • With P7 for McLaren, Lando Norris tied his best-ever Spa result (he previously finished seventh in 2020). • After taking P8 for Alpine, Esteban Ocon has now scored points at Spa in his last six consecutive appearances. • It was his first points-finish since Canada, four races ago. • With P9 for Aston Martin, Lance Stroll tied his best-ever Belgian Grand Prix finish (2020). • Stroll has not had a top-eight finish in the last five races. • Yuki Tsunoda took P10 and has scored all of AlphaTauri's points in 2023. • Tsunoda has now finished 10th on three occasions this year (Australia, Azerbaijan, Belgium). • Pierre Gasly could only manage P11, but still scored more points in yesterday's Sprint (six) than Alpine team mate ocon scored in today's Grand Prix (four). • Carlos Sainz’s DNF for Ferrari was his fourth failure to finish at Spa (fifth when including his did-not-start in 2020). • Oscar Piastri’s early DNF for McLaren was his first retirement since his F1 debut in Bahrain at the start of the season. via Formula 1 News https://www.formula1.com

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Use your head a bit more Relive the terse radio messages between Verstappen and engineer Gianpiero Lambiase at Spa

They’d already had a tempestuous radio exchange on Friday during qualifying – but come the Grand Prix Max Verstappen and his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase were at it again, sparring on the airwaves as the Dutchman climbed up the order in Belgium. Verstappen was able to extend his first stint on the soft compound tyres longer than his team mate Sergio Perez, and with rain coming, Lambiase wanted to know if there was enough life left in the tyres to make them last until the weather arrived. But Verstappen wasn’t in the mood to discuss strategy, instead tersely replying that he couldn’t exactly see the radar from his cockpit. READ MORE: Verstappen opens up on radio exchange with engineer in Belgian GP after dominant recovery drive to 8th straight win By the third stint, Lambiase was cajoling the Dutchman not to take too much life out his final set of tyres – only for Verstappen to retort that he could come in and give his team some extra pit stop practice. "I know they don’t want to do an extra pit stop so I just wanted to make them a little bit uncomfortable," joked Verstappen afterwards. "Maybe then they might think I’m going to push it to make another stop!" Verstappen and Lambiase’s radio exchanges have become notorious It made for some entertaining listening, and was a clear display of just how much pace Verstappen felt he had in hand and how relaxed he was once leading that he was able to think up one-liners whilst driving at speeds upwards of 300km/h. FACTS AND STATS: Win 12 for Red Bull heralds most successful season start in F1 history But on the subject of his Race Engineer 'GP', Verstappen was keen to dispel any rumours of a rift between the duo, stating: "That’s how we operate, we know each other very well from all the years we have been working together already. The car is performing very well, of course they want to keep it under control but I’m the one in the car feeling how the tyres are behaving. They have the numbers but it’s still also a feeling thing. "As long as they tell me from their side what they are seeing, I can make my mind up in terms of how to push or not and that works out well." To listen to those exchanges, hit play on the video above. This feature is currently not available because you need to provide consent to functional cookies. Please update your cookie preferences Race Highlights: 2023 Belgian Grand Prix via Formula 1 News https://www.formula1.com

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'It was painful' Norris describes McLaren's straight-line speed struggles after surprise P7 finish in Belgium

Lando Norris admitted it was a “good surprise” for him to find himself finishing seventh at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix, after a “painful” afternoon behind the wheel of the MCL60 struggling for straight-line pace. Norris started from seventh on the grid, but his struggles saw him lose places early on, as he dropped outside the top 10. A switch from the mediums to the hards didn’t see much improvement, before going on to the softs dropped him to the back of the field. MONDAY MORNING DEBRIEF: How the mid-race rain rescued McLaren's Sunday in Belgium However, he managed to make his way back up the order before holding off the late challenge of Esteban Ocon to take seventh place. And after the race, Norris explained why McLaren struggled so much compared to their rivals. Asked what had happened with the car, Norris said: “Nothing, I was just barely making eighth gear, we were that slow in the straight. I just couldn’t defend, I couldn’t attack. It was impossible to overtake; I didn’t overtake one person on the straight today. We were too slow. This feature is currently not available because you need to provide consent to functional cookies. Please update your cookie preferences Norris hails McLaren strategy for vaulting him up into the points from ‘not far off last place’ “I think I only overtook two or three people today and that was all in the corners. It was painful. The beginning was so painful, but we tried and to go on to the hard and we got done over again. The hard was not a good enough tyre. “So, we had one thing left to try and that was put a soft tyre on. This was already on Lap 24, 25. So I was expecting to box again for another soft at one point. But we were somehow in seventh, we undercut like 10 cars, I think, which I was pretty surprised by. Good surprised of course. FACTS AND STATS: Win 12 for Red Bull heralds most successful season start in F1 history “I thought I was going to be boxing again, and they were like, ‘Okay we are going to try and go to the end.’ I pushed the tyres so much in the beginning, I thought my race was going to be over again and I was going to start to struggle too much. “But we kept the tyres alive and still managed to finish P7, stay ahead of Esteban, who was closing quite quickly in the last couple of laps, so I’m happy.” Norris struggled for pace especially in the early stages of the race in Belgium Sharing an example of how much he struggled in the straights – with Norris receiving a number of conciliatory pats on the back from his fellow drivers in the pen – Norris said: “Everyone was overtaking me before the DRS activation zone. Honestly, I had a run on Alex [Albon] out of Turn 1. I was coming at him out of Turn 1, I had new tyres, he had old tyres, and I think by the end of the straight, he pulled, like, three or four car lengths on me. READ MORE: What the teams said – Race day in Belgium “This was me with DRS, using overtake. It was just painful. I actually could not overtake a car on the straight today, no matter how good my exit was. We got it wrong; I think we've admitted it already. “We got it wrong, we were way too high on downforce, and it didn’t help us in pretty much any way, so we’ll review and make sure we do a better job next time.” via Formula 1 News https://www.formula1.com

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Perez praises team mate Verstappen for tremendous first half of season after eighth straight win

Sergio Perez has admitted that “there’s nothing to be taken away” from Red Bull team mate Max Verstappen after the Dutchman’s “tremendous” opening half to the 2023 campaign. Verstappen, looking to make it three world titles on the bounce, leads Perez by 125 points in the drivers’ standings after taking 10 wins from 12 races so far, including the last eight in a row. READ MORE: Verstappen opens up on radio exchange with engineer in Belgian GP after dominant recovery drive to 8th straight win The latest in that enviable run came in Belgium over the weekend, with Verstappen recovering from a pre-race gearbox penalty to rise from sixth to victory, while Perez put recent struggles behind him to come home second and mark his best result since Miami seven races ago. Giving his initial reaction to the race, Perez said: “I mean, it’s a massive difference, that sort of race, you know. You are just getting through overheating tyres, managing tyres and so on, so that worked a lot better today. This feature is currently not available because you need to provide consent to functional cookies. Please update your cookie preferences Race Highlights: 2023 Belgian Grand Prix “Overall, I think it’s a great team result. I think once Max came through, with his pace on that second stint, it was all about bringing it home with a good result for the team. “We were looking after the car at that point, making sure that we didn’t take too much out of it. That was pretty much the whole race.” READ MORE: ‘It’s been a positive weekend’ – Leclerc pleased with podium in Belgium but says Ferrari still have ‘a lot of work to do’ As for Verstappen’s performances from the Bahrain opener to Belgium on Sunday, he continued: “There’s nothing to be taken away from Max, certainly. He did a tremendous a race, and he’s done a tremendous season. “But the gap looked bigger today, because we had to make sure we brought it home once the result was settled. This feature is currently not available because you need to provide consent to functional cookies. Please update your cookie preferences Perez pleased with ‘great team result’ in Spa as he helps Red Bull seal a 1-2 “But certainly he’s done a tremendous job, he’s very talented, around his team they’re getting the maximum out of the weekends, weekend after weekend, which is really impressive.” Perez added that his own efforts at Spa-Francorchamps – a Sprint race clash with Mercedes rival Lewis Hamilton aside – were confidence-boosting heading into the summer break. FACTS AND STATS: Win 12 for Red Bull heralds most successful season start in F1 history “Yeah, it’s good, a double podium,” he said. “I think today we managed to recover some good points. I look forward massively for the second half of the season, [and] looking forward to a bit of a break.” via Formula 1 News https://www.formula1.com