Lewis Hamilton blown away by rival Max Verstappen's act in Belgian GP qualifying

28 July 2023 , 18:08

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Lewis Hamilton was impressed by Max Verstappen in qualifying (Image: Sky Sports)

Lewis Hamilton admitted he was impressed by the lap time Max Verstappen managed in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix.

The Dutchman will start Sunday's race in sixth place due to a grid penalty for using an extra gearbox this weekend. But he was top of the timesheets in the final part of qualifying to limit the damage.

Charles Leclerc inherits pole position from Verstappen but was not really all that close to the Red Bull. The Ferrari driver was more than eight-tenths of a second off a very impressive lap from the championship leader.

Hamilton was fourth quickest in the session and rises to third thanks to Verstappen's grid drop. But the Mercedes star was almost a second slower than that lap time set by his Formula 1 rival.

The size of that gap took the seven-time world champion by surprise. He said after the session: "At the end I was still a good chunk off Max – pretty impressive."

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Regarding his own outcome, Hamilton said: "I'm really happy with the result we've got. I have Max behind but the goal, of course, will be to chase those guys down... The car didn't feel bad today, pretty decent.

"But in the middle sector we're losing a second, so I've got to go and study to try to figure out where that is and if there's any way, within the package that we have, that I can close that."

Verstappen set the quickest time but his penalty means Charles Leclerc will start on pole (Getty Images)

Verstappen was understandably a happy man after producing such an eye-catching lap. But he admitted after the session that he had been pushing to the limit in order to get it on the board.

The Dutchman said: "That final lap, I think was very good. I just risked a bit more compared to all of the other laps, leaving a smaller margin, which almost knocked me out in Q2. So it was tough out there today to get everything right."

And he went on to share his belief that the size of the gap between his time and everyone else's was exaggerated by the weather conditions. Verstappen added: "If it would have been a fully dry qualifying, I think that the gap wouldn't have been like this."

Daniel Moxon