Verstappen in defensive mode against hard-charging McLaren, takes 10-place penalty at Belgian GP

SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium — When Max Verstappen raced at the Belgian Grand Prix last season, he was cruising to a third straight Formula One world championship.

One year later, the Dutch driver heads into the same race on Sunday with what’s looking like a fight on his hands from a pack of chasers led by McLaren’s Lando Norris.

Verstappen not only has stiff competition for the first time since he became the sport’s dominant force. He will face a 10-place grid penalty in the race after his team installed a fifth power unit in his car before Friday’s first practice. That is one more engine than the established limit for the season.

The Red Bull ace still holds a relatively comfortable 76-point lead — with 265 points to 189 for Norris. But McLaren has erased the speed gap with Red Bull this summer while Mercedes and Ferrari remain real threats for individual victories.

In 2023, Verstappen finished first at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps to claim an eighth straight victory and enter the mid-season break with a 125-point lead over teammate Sergio Pérez. Verstappen would go on to make it an F1 record 10 wins in a row as Red Bull dominated the season. Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz was the only non-Red Bull driver to top the podium.

And Verstappen appeared to be off to another title march this year after winning four of the first five races. But since then he has just three wins in the last eight grand prix and has now gone three consecutive races without a victory for the first time since 2021.

His frustration was evident last weekend in Hungary when he finished fifth despite having started from third. Verstappen bickered with his team over the radio regarding their pit-stop strategies after his car was unable to match the pace of the McLarens, which locked out the front row both in qualifying and the race.

“From my side I think it was quite clear that the strategy was wrong and of course I’m very driven like everyone else in the team. We want to try and be perfect,” Verstappen said Thursday, reflecting on the tough race in Budapest, which included contact with Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes that sent his Red Bull airborne.

“Now I know that every single race to do that is very, very hard. I think we came very close last year, but when things are not going how they should have been, I think it’s quite normal that you can share your frustration.”

Verstappen, who was born in Belgium but drives under the Dutch flag, won here the past three years at the track set in the forested hills of the Ardennes.

But Verstappen acknowledged that the 10-spot penalty hurts his chances to end his mini-streak of winless races.

“I knew of course that it is coming. It’s not a surprise to me,” he said earlier. “If you look at our last few races where we haven’t particularly been the fastest, I wouldn’t say that with 10 places extra we have a chance of winning.”

Radio drama

Oscar Piastri became the seventh different winner in 13 races this season after leading a one-two by McLaren ahead of Norris at the Hungaroring.

While the papaya pair of cars were uncatchable, the real drama of the race played out on the McLaren team radio where the team engineer had to plead with Norris to give back the race lead to Piastri.

“The main point is we had a one-two. I was super happy with that, the whole team were very happy,” Norris said Thursday. “Could I have done things probably a little bit differently? Yes, but that’s from my side and the team’s side to discuss what we’ve done, so (I’m) coming in this weekend to try and repeat it in terms of result.”

While Norris still has a way to go to catch Verstappen, McLaren as a team has closed on Red Bull in the constructors’ championship. Red Bull leads 389-338 over McLaren, with Pérez struggling to stay among the top drivers despite having one of the better cars.