Max Verstappen stormed back to the top of the table after recent shortcomings that have seen McLaren close the gap to Red Bull as the teams fight through the mid season hurdle. Qualifying was plagued with wet weather but as history has shown Verstappen continued to show his masterful pace in the rain. However despite the qualifying success Verstappen was handed a 10 place grid penalty due to using a new combustion unit beyond the 2024 allocation. Charles Leclerc inherited pole having set the second fastest time.
Verstappen said, “That was a nice qualifying,” the reigning world champion commented afterwards. “Luckily the weather was okay – it was raining a little bit but at least we could do a decent qualifying. Everything worked well, every tire set that we were on we could do good lap times.
I was also of course thinking about Q3 not knowing if it was going to dry out, so was trying to keep two new sets for Q3 and luckily we escaped Q1 and Q2 so, yeah, very happy. The car was working quite well in the wet, so I could just do my laps and try to do clean lap times in the wet, which is always quite tricky.
“But tomorrow I know it’s going to be quite a different day. It’s going to be warmer, normally no rain, so it’s all about tire degradation and we just need to make sure we’re good on that…Of course I have to start 10 places back, so this is the best I could do today and then go from there. I don’t know how quick we’re going to be, I hope we can be in the mix to try and move forward.”
Full Belgium Grand Prix Qualifying Results
| Pos | Driver | Car | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Laps |
|---|
| 1 | Max Verstappen | Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT | 1:54.938 | 1:53.837 | 1:53.159 | 21 |
| 2 | Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1:55.349 | 1:54.193 | 1:53.754 | 22 |
| 3 | Sergio Perez | Red Bull Racing Honda RBPT | 1:55.139 | 1:54.470 | 1:53.765 | 21 |
| 4 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:55.692 | 1:54.037 | 1:53.835 | 22 |
| 5 | Lando Norris | McLaren Mercedes | 1:55.582 | 1:54.358 | 1:53.981 | 24 |
| 6 | Oscar Piastri | McLaren Mercedes | 1:54.835 | 1:54.136 | 1:54.027 | 23 |
| 7 | George Russell | Mercedes | 1:55.353 | 1:54.095 | 1:54.184 | 22 |
| 8 | Carlos Sainz | Ferrari | 1:55.169 | 1:54.112 | 1:54.477 | 23 |
| 9 | Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes | 1:55.489 | 1:54.258 | 1:54.765 | 23 |
| 10 | Esteban Ocon | Alpine Renault | 1:55.417 | 1:54.460 | 1:54.810 | 23 |
| 11 | Alexander Albon | Williams Mercedes | 1:55.722 | 1:54.473 | | 16 |
| 12 | Pierre Gasly | Alpine Renault | 1:54.911 | 1:54.635 | | 17 |
| 13 | Daniel Ricciardo | RB Honda RBPT | 1:55.451 | 1:54.682 | | 14 |
| 14 | Valtteri Bottas | Kick Sauber Ferrari | 1:55.531 | 1:54.764 | | 17 |
| 15 | Lance Stroll | Aston Martin Aramco Mercedes | 1:56.072 | 1:55.716 | | 17 |
| 16 | Nico Hulkenberg | Haas Ferrari | 1:56.308 | | | 9 |
| 17 | Kevin Magnussen | Haas Ferrari | 1:56.500 | | | 9 |
| 18 | Yuki Tsunoda | RB Honda RBPT | 1:56.593 | | | 8 |
| 19 | Logan Sargeant | Williams Mercedes | 1:57.230 | | | 8 |
| 20 | Zhou Guanyu | Kick Sauber Ferrari | 1:57.775 | | | 9 |
Max Verstappen was relegated 10 grid positions for exceeding the number of allowed combustion units for 2024.