Postcards from… SPA

It's no surprise to learn that Max Verstappen and Red Bull lead the unofficial ‘sprint championship', with Belgium being the third of six sprint weekends this season (after Azerbaijan and Austria). As is the case in the actual grands prix, Red Bull is so far unbeaten in the sprints, with two wins courtesy of Verstappen and one, for Sergio Perez in Baku. Max leads the drivers' sprint standings with 22 points, seven more than his teammate. In third place, with the same number of points as the Mexican, is Carlos Sainz: the only driver apart from the reigning world champion to have finished all three races sprint races in the points. In fourth is the other Ferrari of Charles Leclerc, underlining how the Scuderia is second only to Red Bull on sprint Saturdays, with 26 points scored in total so far. That's still an 11-point deficit to Red Bull, but more than double the points total of the third-placed team: Aston Martin, on 13.

A total of 13 drivers have collected points in the sprint races from seven teams: Williams, AlphaTauri and Alfa Romeo have yet to score. There are still three sprint Saturdays left this year – in Austin, Losail and Interlagos – to complete the picture. Will Red Bull be aiming for a total whitewash to match their form on Sundays to date?

In his rookie season Oscar Piastri has already shown flashes of his extraordinary talent: he arrived in Formula 1 on the back of three consecutive championship wins from 2019 to 2021 (in Formula Renault Eurocup, Formula 3 and Formula 2) plus a year as reserve driver with Alpine. But in Spa, he experienced the full gamut of racing emotions. He had a stellar Saturday, missing pole by just a few thousandths of a second in the Sprint Shootout: Max Verstappen was only 0.014s ahead. In the sprint race itself, Piastri was on the virtual podium (there's no real podium ceremony on Saturdays), masterfully managing his intermediate tyres on a practically dry racing line. Sunday was a different ball game though, packed into the few seconds between the lights going out and a collision with Carlos Sainz at La Source, which knocked out both drivers. Was it a rookie mistake, as the Spaniard maintained, or just one of those racing incidents that can always happen at the start of any race? The second scenario seems more likely, although Piastri could perhaps have been a little more careful too.

It was a weekend to remember for Alpine, right from the very start. The announcement of the departures of Otmar Szafnauer and Alan Permane (who spent 34 years at Enstone) from the roles of team principal and sporting director respectively sent shock waves through the paddock – although the real effect will only be seen longer-term. It would have been understandable if the team and drivers had been distracted by the unaccustomed media attention, but instead they knuckled down and did their talking on the track. Pierre Gasly took an unexpected third place in the sprint race while Esteban Ocon ended the Belgian Grand Prix eighth, making some nice overtaking moves en route. The result was 10 points in the bag, putting an end to Alpine's two pointless weekends. In fact, it was Alpine's second-biggest points haul of the year, following the 21 scored in Monaco. McLaren now seems to have run away in the fight for fifth place, so it won't be easy to keep motivation high in the second part of the championship. But everyone has to start again somewhere: Spa was a good place to begin.

Fernando Alonso doesn't normally like to celebrate his birthday: even less so in the spotlight of Formula 1. July 29 has almost always coincided with a race weekend, so questions about the gifts the Spaniard would like to receive in an ideal world have abounded with tedious inevitability. Ferrari fans will always remember his response in 2013, when Fernando said he would like a blue car, referring to Sebastian Vettel's dominant Red Bull. These days, Alonso has mellowed. The Spaniard was unable to party on the track, ending up against the barriers in the sprint race, but he made up for it the following day, finishing the grand prix in fifth and equalling Aston Martin's best finish from the last four races. Ten points doesn't sound much for a team and driver that had started the season with very different expectations, but the result at least served to hold off Ferrari in the constructors' standings. Aston Martin is currently five points ahead: the smallest margin since the start of the championship.

It wasn't quite a perfect score for Max Verstappen at Spa, as Lewis Hamilton had the temerity to steal the additional point for fastest lap on the final tour. And Verstappen also had to shrug off the bickering on the radio with his race engineer Gianpiero Lambiase: Spa providing the latest instalment of this enduringly amusing sitcom. But Max's hunger for success knows no bounds: he took pole position on Friday, pole and victory in Saturday's sprint race, as well as victory in Sunday's grand prix: claiming a total of 33 points. So in the first 12 rounds of 2023 Max has now accumulated 314 points (26.16 per race on average). That total alone would have been enough for him to become world champion in both 2010 and 2012! At this rate, the Dutchman is set to break his own record for the number of points scored in one season (454), which he set last year. Drivers normally say they're not too interested in records, but they're nonetheless keen to point them out when they fall. Max is no exception.