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It’s raining at Spa right now. The fans are reaching for the rain jackets. And the forecast is for a big storm to hit later.
Giles Richards
Max Verstappen has insisted that the dismissal of Christian Horner as team principal would not be a factor in deciding whether he remains at Red Bull.
The world champion also revealed that the shock move after the British Grand Prix was led by the team’s parent company Red Bull GmbH, which had been embroiled in a power struggle with Horner for a year and a half.
Nico Hülkenberg finished third for Sauber at Silverstone earlier this month, remarkably achieving a first podium in 239 grand prix starts. Sky Sports F1 have interviewed him.
“It was great. Opportunities came … we executed perfectly,” Hülkenberg tells Ted Kravitz.
“It’s been so positive, the aftermath, the amount of love, feedback from around the world, from fans, from colleagues, from ex-colleagues. It’s been pretty incredible, and really special.
“The aftermath was pretty overwhelming … by Tuesday, I had more than 700 messages. It took me the whole week to work through it and reply. It was quite a bit of work, actually.
“I’ve got a lot of those [strategy] calls wrong in the past. To get it all right is nearly impossible. It just played out beautifully … I had the right nose, the right feeling, and followed my instincts.”
Giles Richards
Amid a turbulent period for Red Bull, their new team principal, Laurent Mekies, is bearing the responsibility and the scrutiny, for the moment at least, with a smile.
After two weeks in charge since the dismissal of Christian Horner, Mekies and Red Bull are adjusting to a new era with a business as usual attitude even as the circumstances suggest it can be anything but, before this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix.
“The timing is bloody bizarre,” the pundit Martin Brundle says on Sky Sports of Horner’s departure. “You might have thought it was something to do in the close season. But it is what it is.”
“He was losing internal support,” claims Nico Rosberg. “Key people were leaving … so they decided to pull the trigger.”
“Verstappen will definitely stay next year,” says Naomi Schiff. “While Red Bull racing is a successful team, Red Bull [the drink] is at the core of it. This is their biggest marketing activity … they have clearly gone backwards, they need to go forwards, the whole team needs to rebuild, and rebuild their image.”
Preamble
The buildup to the Belgian grand prix has been dominated by Christian Horner’s recent departure from Red Bull, and that hasn’t changed this weekend: although an actual grand prix will shift collective focus to the sport rather than off-track politics.
Lando Norris – having a mixed season to say the least – grabbed pole position for McLaren yesterday while Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton, who has won five times at Spa in his illustrious career, could only manage 16th on the grid after what he termed an “unacceptable” error. “Definitely a weekend to forget,” said the seven-times world champion. “I’ve got to look internally and apologise to the team.” Norris’s pole followed up victory at the British grand prix earlier this month when his teammate, Oscar Piastri, claimed he was unfairly denied by a penalty for braking erratically during a safety-car restart.
Max Verstappen of Red Bull, having won the earlier sprint race, took fourth on the grid while Piastri is second in a McLaren one-two. Charles Leclerc, Hamilton’s Ferrari teammate, starts third. There should be plenty of intrigue, not least in judging how Laurent Mekies, Verstappen and Yuki Tsunoda’s new team principal, begins his quest to fill Horner’s shoes.
Lights out: 2pm UK time
