Max Verstappen has won the last three editions of the Belgian GP. In fact, in 2022, he won this very race from P14 on the grid. However, with the field bunching up, even getting on the podium is an uphill task for the Dutchman now. The latest news is that Verstappen is set to take a 10-place grid penalty for this weekend’s race. While this may look like a gargantuan task for Milton Keynes, its closest competitors in the championship have already listed them as the toughest threat.

McLaren is legitimately giving Red Bull a run for their money for their constructors’ title. Just 51 points separate Red Bull and McLaren in the fight for the Constructors’ crown. However, with the Woking team in good momentum, Red Bull’s retaining of the title may not be so simple. Christian Horner even went on to say that the team cannot limp on its way forward. But interestingly enough, in the reigning champions’ darkest hour, their prime enemy is the first to place belief in them so much so that it might be worrying for Lando Norris who hopes to fight the Dutchman for the championship.

McLaren Boss Zak Brown said, “Yeah, it is a tricky track of how much downforce do you want versus straight-line speed. Max’s second sector there was pretty, pretty awesome. You have to assume he’s on for pole, which means p11, you can pass around here. I think he went from 20th to 9th in two or three laps not long ago. So, I think it would be a big mistake to think he can’t go from p11 to p1, but we have to take advantage of every opportunity we can.”

While this may already be worrying news for Lando and his teammate Oscar Piastri, the former isn’t already too happy because of last week’s events.

Lando Norris “not too proud” about dramatic events of Hungarian GP

Lando Norris admitted he does not feel too proud about overshadowing teammate Oscar Piastri’s first F1 race win, and McLaren’s one-two, with his radio wrangling in the closing stages of last week’s Hungarian GP. Lando also accepted that he now realizes that he was “stupid” to not immediately let Piastri back through to the lead after the pit stops, rather than waiting for 20 laps when there were only three laps of the Grand Prix remaining and he had insufficient time to mount a fresh bid for the lead.

Five days on from the late-race drama at the Hungaroring, when speaking to the media on the opening day of the Belgian GP weekend, Norris said, “The things that I could have done, the fact that I kind of clouded over Oscar’s first race win in Formula 1 is something I’ve not felt too proud about. The fact we had a one-two and that was barely a headline after the race. The fact we had a one-two and nothing was really spoken about it from that side, that’s the bits I felt worse about.”

He added, “Apart from that we discussed it, we have spoken abut it. Both sides could have done things a little bit better, a little bit differently. It’s almost not good that we had it, but a good moment we’ve had it [at the same time], we’ve learned from it and hopefully it’s done better next time.”

It is already a gloomy time for Lando as he has gone over the past week’s events multiple times in his head and now Zak Brown has mounted another bit of pressure by almost rooting for a Verstappen victory.