Red Bull Content Pool
F1 News
Conclusions after GP Belgium | Second world title now a formality for Verstappen
- GPblog.com
It's not over until it's over, but where it was previously too early to make such statements, we can now no longer ignore it: the second world title of Max Verstappen now really seems no more than a formality. That is one of the conclusions that can be drawn from the Belgian Grand Prix. What else can we conclude after the race in Spa-Francorchamps?
Second world title now a formality for Verstappen
With Red Bull Racing's seasonal momentum and the team's strong showing coming out of the summer break, it no longer seems to be a question of if, but when Verstappen will win his second world title. This is also evident from the words of Helmut Marko, who seems to be shifting the focus to securing not only first, but also second place in the championship. Combined with the constructors' title, which Red Bull also seems to be well on its way to, the Austrian stable would even surpass its dominant era from 2010 to 2013.
Mercedes has not achieved the desired result
Regardless of its disappointing performance in the first half of the season, Mercedes refused to give up on 2022. The team might have hoped that the new technical guideline would be detrimental to the competition, but nothing appears to be further from the truth. Red Bull even looks stronger than ever, while the gap to Mercedes has only widened. Ferrari did seem to suffer a setback, but that may have had more to do with tyre degradation. Mattia Binotto at least assures that his team did not have to make any adjustments according to the new FIA guidelines.
Toto Wolff's team assumed that the gap would be further closed in Belgium, as there was a clear improvement in the German stable ahead of the summer break. And while Sunday's lack of pace was not too bad, the two-second gap between Lewis Hamilton and George Russell in qualifying hit hard and will not soon be forgotten.
Albon proves his worth in F1
He was sidelined after just two seasons in Formula 1 and made his comeback with the Williams team after a year's absence. Alexander Albon has shown from the start of the season that the British team made the right choice, and proved it again during the Belgian GP. After a strong qualifying session the Thai driver took the final point, which he defended like a lion. For now, Albon is not going anywhere (and rightly so).