Max Verstappen shares a resigned outlook after Oscar Piastri crushes the opposition at the F1 Belgian GP sprint shootout

Max Verstappen cut a resigned look after the F1 Belgian GP sprint shootout, as the driver was close to half a second slower than polesitter Oscar Piastri. The shootout was an intriguing one, as we saw drivers like Lewis Hamilton, George Russell, Kimi Antonelli, and others miss out on reaching the final segment.

Throughout the qualifying, however, a clear pattern had emerged even before we reached the final push laps. The McLaren was sacrificing something in the straight lines as it targeted better performance in the second sector, where aerodynamic efficiency is crucial. As the lap would unravel, Max Verstappen would pull out a significant advantage in the first sector.

He would then get pulled back by Oscar Piastri in his McLaren, who would pull out close to a second in lap time in just the second sector and then lose a part of it in the third. At the end of the sprint shootout, Piastri put together a stunning lap that was around half a second faster than Max Verstappen's.

The Dutch driver was able to beat one of the McLarens in Lando Norris and felt that he extracted the maximum that he could from the car. The driver did have a resigned look afterwards, as he did not take much comfort in having a significant advantage on the straights. He said:

"Being P2 between the McLarens is already a good result for us. I do think we maximized that. I enjoyed it out there. The lap itself was fine, it was good. Of course the gap is very big, but it’s been big already from FP1, so it’s not a big surprise."

He added:

"We just have to focus on ourselves and work on the balance of the car and try to go faster. When you’re almost five tenths off, I don’t think going faster or slower on the straight is going to matter a lot. We just have to do our own race and see what we can do."

Max Verstappen and Red Bull are not happy with the gap

Red Bull has brought a few upgrades to the car this weekend as the team tries to close the gap to McLaren. The upgrades have seemingly not had much of an impact, as the gap to Oscar Piastri is massive. Talking about the gap, Max Verstappen admitted that it is too big, as he said:

"It’s always difficult on a Sprint weekend to say exactly what they do, but then when you look at the gap, that’s not what we want. We keep improving, keep trying to find more performance, but other teams do the same thing, so that’s how it goes."

It would be interesting to see how the start of the race pans out for the Dutch driver, as the advantage on the straight could potentially play into his hands and help him snatch the lead.