Mercedes drivers Lewis Hamilton and George Russell believe it’ll be very difficult to hold Max Verstappen back in Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix.
With Verstappen taking a fifth power unit of the season in Belgium, the reigning World Champion must serve a 10-place grid penalty that demotes the pole-sitter down to 11th on the grid for Sunday’s race.
Max Verstappen tipped to ‘come through pretty quickly’
Mercedes duly starts from ahead of Verstappen as a result of the Dutch driver’s penalty, with Lewis Hamilton in third place and George Russell in sixth – but neither is confident of being able to keep the Red Bull behind as the race unfolds.
“I think there’s a slight chance we could, maybe, fight for a podium, but I think it’s gonna be really tough,” Hamilton told media, including PlanetF1.com, when asked about his prospects for Sunday’s race.
“Because the McLarens are behind, there’s a quick Red Bull ahead, and another quick Red Bull that’s gonna come through.
“So it’s gonna be tough. I think the Ferrari is also there, just there with us on performance so.”
While Mercedes has been able to take the fight to Red Bull in recent weeks, with battles going Hamilton’s way at the Hungaroring and Silverstone, Russell said the chances of finishing ahead of Verstappen will likely come down to tyre degradation – Red Bull appeared to suffer quite a high degradation on Friday’s long run race simulations.
“I’m pretty confident he’s gonna come through very quickly!” Russell laughed when asked by PlanetF1.com about the possibility of keeping the Red Bull behind.
“But, saying that, yesterday was the most amount of deg we’ve seen all season on a Friday.
“Some people – it looks like they need to be a three-stop, but you could nurse one and a half to two seconds off the pace and, maybe, you can do a one-stop.
“Who knows? But, if you do that, you might be very slow as well. So, for sure, we’re not looking in the strongest position ahead of tomorrow but I do think there’s a lot of opportunity with how much deg there is.”
With Mercedes reverting from the new-specification floor from Friday into Saturday in order to run a more established baseline in the tricky wet conditions, Hamilton said he felt there was some relief on his side with the rain helping to bring Mercedes back into play, and said he has some concerns about the race pace of the W15 in dry conditions.
“I think the race pace was strong for the other guys,” he said.
“I’m hoping the changes we’ve made overnight put us in maybe a slightly better place. It’s going to be how I drive it tomorrow that really seals the deal or go backward.”
