Verstappen: Loss of energy didn’t cost me P2 in Belgium F1 qualifying

Max Verstappen doesn’t believe his Formula 1 car running out of energy at the end of his qualifying lap at Spa-Francorchamps cost him a front-row start for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Verstappen ended qualifying just 0.015s behind the Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas for second place. 

The Dutchman complained over team radio after his final Q3 run that his car had “ran out of energy a bit too early''.

When asked about that radio message in the post-qualifying press conference, Verstappen doesn’t believe it cost him P2 as he would have had to save power earlier in the lap.

“Automatically throughout qualifying you stay more open on throttle, of course you try to manage the energy throughout the lap,” Verstappen said. “But I think it was probably the fastest way around the lap. Out of the last corner, you feel the engine is not accelerating as normal because you ran out of that energy, you used it up somewhere else.

“It’s always that feeling, but probably when I go back and look at the data, it’s still the fastest way. But it’s a bit of an odd feeling sometimes.”

After being 0.8s off Mercedes at the last race in Spain in qualifying, Verstappen was pleased to see that the deficit had been reduced this weekend at Spa.

“It’s been a positive weekend, I didn’t really have a lot to complain,” Verstappen added. “If I’m not mistaken I think this is the closest we’ve been to Mercedes in qualifying on the track where we didn’t expect it to be like this. So I’m very happy with that. I think qualifying went pretty smoothly.

“It was all about, for us, trying to get a little bit of a tow to add a bit of top speed. You’re trying not to be affected in the middle sector, but of course, everybody is trying to get that tow, so getting to the last chicane to prepare the lap sometimes was not ideal getting into turn one.

“But I think in Q3 it was fine, I could do my lap like I wanted it and very pleased to be here again.”