The champion rose from the bottom – Newspaper Kommersant No. 157 (7358) of 08/29/2022

Max Verstappen won the Belgian Grand Prix in brilliant style. The Dutchman started from 14th place, but this did not prevent him from removing all questions about the winner by the middle of the race. Second was Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez, third was Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz. With Scuderia No. 1 Charles Leclerc only finishing fifth, Verstappen’s lead over his only rival for the title has approached a hundred points, and now Verstappen’s second title seems all but inevitable.

The Belgian Grand Prix opened the second part of the championship after the traditional almost a month-long break in the championship. From this break, the fans, especially those of them who are devoid of hard team addictions and just want to see interesting races, were expecting a lot. Still, the first half of the championship was rarely pleased with a tense struggle. The advantage of Red Bull in general and Max Verstappen in particular was too obvious. And the attempts of the same Ferrari to challenge the “bulls”, with rare exceptions, did not give anything. And then the teams began to please the fans with statements that they managed to work hard in August and now everything will be different. Ferrari talked about this, noting that the new version of their power plant will allow Leclerc to feel more confident. Mercedes also hinted at great progress, which at the end of July in Hungary even scored second and third places on the podium. But then Verstappen drove onto the track, and it became clear that either the rivals of Red Bull greatly exaggerated their achievements, or Red Bull itself had advanced so much further than its competitors that it crossed out all their achievements.

The phenomenon of Verstappen’s power happened on Saturday, in qualifying. She could not bring him a start from the first place, because the team decided that it would be better to change the engine on the Dutchman’s car in excess of the established limit (the same procedure was done with the car of Charles Leclerc so that he had to come to terms with the loss of places on the starting grid ). But how fast was the Dutchman! Carlos Sainz, the official winner of the qualification, he “brought” more than 0.6 seconds. Mercedes drivers – about two seconds. The latter shocked Mercedes boss Toto Wolf so much that he called this qualification the worst in his career and, perhaps for the first time since the beginning of the season, said that it was time to think not about the current, but about the next championship. Apparently, because everything is already clear in this.

If there were schemes in the plans of the strategists of the same Ferrari, providing that somehow it would be possible to contain Verstappen, then they collapsed quickly. The Dutchman, who started from 14th place (Leclerc was 15th), flew as if he had not just a new engine, but as if there were two of them at once. The ease with which he dealt with rivals was truly amazing. Already by the middle of the race, he took the lead, and nothing more interesting happened to him during the Belgian stage. He rode to the finish line at his own pace, and behind him, at a respectful distance, he was also covered by Sergio Perez.

To justify Leclerc, it can be noted that he was unlucky at the start: a fragment that got into the air duct forced him to go to an unplanned early pit stop. Perhaps it was a piece of Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes, who ran into Fernando Alonso’s Alpine and dropped out already in the debut of the race. And if Leclerc had finished at least in the top 3, one could say that he was unlucky. But he was only fifth on the track, and even sixth in the protocol, as he received a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Anyway, Ferrari, if George Russell from Mercedes had been a little more successful (the Briton could easily overtake Carlos Sainz), could have been left without a podium.

After the Belgian stage, the gap between Verstappen and Leclerc has already reached 98 points. Moreover, the leader of Ferrari is inferior not only to the reigning world champion, but also to Perez, however, only five points. But, apparently, it is the second number of Red Bull until the end of the championship that will remain Leclerc’s main competitor in the battle for second place in the overall standings. It is almost impossible for anyone to reach the Dutchman.

Alexander Petrov