Max Verstappen looks back on the opening lap of the Belgian GP. The Dutchman quickly overtook polesitter Andrea Kimi Antonelli for the race lead, but then saw the Italian and Charles Leclerc pass him again due to an empty battery. Verstappen had no choice but to let the two go by: ‘I saw a red rocket coming and thought: ‘I’ll hold my line’.”
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For a brief moment, Max Verstappen made his many fans present at Spa-Francorchamps cheer. The Dutchman took the lead from Andrea Kimi Antonelli before Eau Rouge, but not long after saw the same Antonelli and Charles Leclerc pass him again.
According to Verstappen, there was no other option than to let the two pass. “I clearly used too much energy in turns 1 and 2,” he reflects in the press conference after the race. “When I went through Eau Rouge, I looked at the status of my battery and thought: ‘Well… this is going to be a tough ride to Les Combes’.”
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‘Red rocket’
The surprise, however, was that not only Kimi Antonelli passed the four-time world champion again. “Of course, I expected Kimi to overtake me again. But then I looked in my mirrors and saw a red rocket coming,” Verstappen laughs, referring to Leclerc’s Ferrari. “I thought to myself: ‘I’ll hold my line’, otherwise we’d have a collision.”
Verstappen was not the only driver to face an empty battery in the opening phase of the Belgian Grand Prix. George Russell also found himself in a ‘life-threatening’ situation because his battery was not charging, according to him. “I was driving slower than an F2 car and was overtaken by three drivers,” he said. “That made me vulnerable.”
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Read everything about the Belgian GP here
