Max Verstappen didn’t rule out contending for the win at the 2024 Belgian GP as he prepares for his first engine penalty of the season at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in his title race with McLaren‘s Lando Norris.
The Dutchman took penalties in 2022 and 2023 and still managed to win but felt that sort of momentum isn’t going to be possible in 2024 because of the converging field as the ground effect regulations continue to work.
He’s expected to take a 10-place penalty for a new Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) on his Red Bull car which means he faces a tall order to out-race the McLarens, Ferraris and Mercedes cars to claim his first victory since the Spanish GP, over a month ago.
“Likely,” Verstappen told members of the media, including Total-Motorsport.com, of the engine penalty. “I knew that it is coming so that’s not a surprise to me.
“We’ll find out on Sunday how good it’s going to be, because some tracks naturally are a bit better than others. On the street circuit, you wouldn’t want to have an engine penalty. Most likely it will be here a very different situation, than say the last couple of years, but we still have a very good chance of winning.
“If you look at our last three races where we haven’t particularly been the fastest, I wouldn’t say that with 10 places extra we have a chance of winning, but a race can always be turned upside down with moments, so you have to be open-minded.”
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Verstappen added: “I hope a little bit more [than 8th], but let’s see. I don’t know, it’s difficult to predict at the moment.”
Verstappen highlights Belgian GP unknowns
Two key parts to Red Bull’s 2022 and 2023 wins was their incredibly adaptable cars constructed by Adrian Newey, which possessed excellent aerodynamic efficiency to keep top cornering speeds without paying the penalty of additional drag.
But a quality that has come into appreciation this season was the previous seasons’ cars’ ability to handle kerbs, bumps and porpoising as though they were simply non-existent, giving the drivers a good platform to build their weekends from and to learn to attack the track with.
Yet in 2024, it’s a different prospect. The Red Bull seems skittish over kerbs and doesn’t have great tyre management, which are two factors Verstappen points to as things that could hold the team back.
“At the moment, I also don’t know how competitive we are going to be here because a few places also have this new tarmac,” Verstappen added to the press. “So, we need to see how the tyres respond to that as well.
“There’s still a lot of unknowns with the weather, with quite a bit of rain expected on Friday and Saturday so we just need to follow the weather and the progression throughout the weekend and see how competitive we are under normal circumstances.”
