Max Verstappen pulls back the curtain on struggles with Red Bull that prevented a better qualifying for F1 Belgian GP

Max Verstappen feels that the change of setup, where Red Bull added a bit more downforce to the car, seemingly hurt the balance, as he struggled to hit the sweet spot regularly during the 2025 Belgian GP qualifying on Saturday, July 26. In Q3, the Dutch driver's final lap saw him make an error out of turn 1, which potentially cost him P3 as Charles Leclerc pipped him in the end.

This came on the back of a strong start to the weekend, where Max Verstappen won the Sprint starting from the front row at Spa. The Dutch driver had a low downforce setup for the car, which made it very fast down the straights and hence rapid in the first and third sectors.

The car was, however, losing a lot of time in the second sector because of low downforce. While the setup helped Max Verstappen win the Sprint as he held off Oscar Piastri, Sunday is expected to feature rain, and it would have been a major gamble to go with a low downforce setup.

As a result, Red Bull added some downforce to the car for Sunday. Talking to Sky Sports F1, Max Verstappen revealed that the setup change ended up hurting the balance of the car for some reason. He said:

"I was actually hoping it would help the driving feeling, just may be a bit draggy, but it didn’t do that. It was just a bit more draggy and not the right balance. So it’s a bit weird and something we need to look into because it felt like that whole qualifying I couldn’t really push and around here at Spa you need the be committed on entry you want the car to rotate and I couldn’t do that. I would have liked to have started third, that was probably our position today, but Q3 didn’t come together."

Max Verstappen not ruling out fighting the McLaren duo in the wet weather

Sunday is expected to have mixed weather conditions at the worst, and if that is the case, then that could put an emphasis on the strategy and how cars behave in those conditions. We've had two wet weather races this season, and both have been dominated by McLaren. Max Verstappen, however, was seemingly confident that maybe Red Bull could get something done. He said (via Sky Sports F1):

“In the wet around here it’s always very tricky. Also we have to wait and see how much rain is going to fall. Ideally, of course, I’d like to at least be P3, Fighting the McLarens will ne very hard but anything can happen."

The four-time world champion starts the race in P4 and has won three of the last 4 races at Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. It would be interesting to see what he can achieve in the car on Sunday.