Max Verstappen slams FIA for ‘ruining’ Belgian GP | Sports News

Max Verstappen slammed the Formula 1 race director for his “very cautious” method to managing circumstances on the Belgian Grand Prix.

The contest was postponed for almost 90 minutes when torrential rain struck the Circuit Spa-Francorchamps, and the FIA opted to pink flag the occasion following the formation lap. That opening lap occurred at 3 pm native time as deliberate, whereas the downpour continued relentlessly.

It rapidly grew to become obvious that visibility was severely compromised as even Lando Norris, trailing solely the security car from pole place, might scarcely see previous the spray being hurled into the environment.

Consequently, race director Rui Marques made the call to halt the beginning and order all autos back to the pit lane. After making that dedication, it was evident the race would not restart anytime quickly as further heavy precipitation was approaching.

The motion lastly resumed roughly 90 minutes past the unique scheduled begin time. The timing proved excellent for Oscar Piastri, who seized the lead from Norris on the opening lap following a rolling begin and maintained that benefit to assert victory.

Verstappen concluded fourth, similar to his beginning place, and was left considering what might have transpired had they been permitted to compete within the more hazardous circumstances, as he made his choice for a more aggressive stance from race control abundantly clear.

The Dutchman raged: “We should have started miles earlier, an hour earlier. A bit of a shame. They took a very cautious approach which we spoke about after Silverstone, to be a little bit more cautious.

“But, for me, this was then the opposite excessive. It simply ruined a good, basic moist race as effectively. We both nonetheless attempt to push for a correct moist race, or we are saying, ‘You know what, let’s simply stop racing within the moist and wait for it to be dry. But that is not what you need, proper? We can nonetheless have some actually cool moist racing, like we confirmed at Silverstone.”

However, the race ultimately unfolded in mostly dry conditions, with Verstappen unable to find the speed required to catch Charles Leclerc, who successfully defended his podium position throughout.

Verstappen had claimed victory in the Sprint race just one day prior, managing to fend off the McLarens by pushing to the limit across 15 laps. Yet tire degradation once again proved problematic over the full race distance – an issue he wants his team to tackle moving forward.

He said: “The issues we have now within the car in tyre management are nonetheless there, it does not matter what rear wing you put on the car and it additionally damage us in the present day within the race. We did the best we might, we made some adjustments and it was a lot nicer across the lap. We know what we have now to work on however, sadly, it was not that easy to repair.”