Max Verstappen drove out of his skin all weekend at Spa. Most of all he got it all right on Sunday’s race, taking off from his 14th place grid position to win the Belgian Grand Prix by a country mile.
The Red Bull car was the fastest missile at the track and Verstappen was on top form.
It was very demoralising for all other drivers except for his team-mate Sergio Perez who finished in a very worthy second place.
Carlos Sainz was third onto the podium but had led the race from pole position after Verstappen’s own pole achievement was converted to 14th on the grid because of a penalty for taking a new engine outside his normal allocation of three engines for the season.
Sainz was demoralised by the speed of the Red Bulls and ‘announced’ that the prancing horses must be given more muscle if they are to be a force to be reckoned with for the rest of the season.
Sainz’s team-mate Charles Leclerc did well to bring his car from 15th on the grid (for a similar engine penalty) to sixth position at the finish, but was equally disappointed with his car’s lack of pace.
Fourth and fifth positions were filled by George Russell, after another great drive in his Mercedes, and he was followed home by Fernando Alonso, the ‘old man’ of motor racing who does not seem to have lost any talent in a constantly improving Alpine Renault.
The other Alpine driven by team-mate Esteban Ocon was just behind Leclerc’s Ferrari.
In eighth position was Sebastian Vettel after a very good drive, carrying the Aston Martin on his back, to the best possible finish.
Pierre Gasly was home ninth with talk that he will take over Vettel’s place next year upon the latter’s retirement.
Alexander Albon also did a very good job to bring the first Williams home well ahead of his team-mate Nicolas Latifi (which was one lap down in eighteenth place).
As a back runner, Albon deserves praise for his achievement.
Next race takes place at the historic Zandvoort circuit for the Dutch Grand Prix amongst the sand dunes of Holland’s coast on September 4.
In the old days this used to mean that drivers heads and goggles got a sand blasting from the high speed grit which the wind carried to them.
Jim Clark learned to wrap a white handkerchief over his face below his eyes and was soon followed in this practice by others until face masks became mandatory.
I remember well the Scotsman winning the Dutch race in his Lotus 25 and again later at the launch of the Lotus 49 (in one and a half litre and three litre forms respectively).
I still cannot get over the death of this wizard who drove Lotuses faster than anybody else with effortless ease and died so unnecessarily due to the lack of safety measures in the late ’60s.
Racing today is so much safer mainly due to the exploits of fellow Scotsman Jackie Stewart who was criticised at the time, in error, by many of us, including myself.
Today we recognise just how noble and determined the role was that Stewart played to the benefit of all drivers since.
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