The Japan Times - Verstappen makes light of Spa penalty

The defending double world champion and runaway leader of the title race reeled off a phenomenal late lap to beat Ferrari's Charles Leclerc by eight-tenths of a second and will be seeking his eighth consecutive victory.

"Last year, I had more penalties," he said, referring to his triumph from 14th on the grid.

"So, we can still win this race on Sunday, but let’s first wait till tomorrow (Saturday)_and see what the weather will do and what kind of racing we are going to have.

"It’s great for me here to see so many fans. I grew up close to here and I have raced here a lot, so it is like a second home race for me."

The 25-year-old Dutchman will be hoping to complete a hat-trick of Belgian wins and to increase his 110-point lead ahead of Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez in the championship, but it will be Leclerc who starts the race from pole position, his second this season.

"Not bad for us," said Leclerc after the wet-dry session, which saw times tumbling in the third qualifying session on slick tyres after Q1 had been run on intermediates.

"Especially in those conditions – it’s always tricky to put everything together. I put in a lot of work for those conditions as I wasn’t comfortable a few races ago and it seems to have paid off.

"We went a bit too early for our last run, but we could have been closer. Having said that, we have a great starting position so let’s see how it goes."

Verstappen added that he made the most of having two sets of tyres for Q3 which had allowed him to push harder. “You can risk a little bit more and that’s what we did on the final lap.

"But it was very tight. The conditions are tricky, the track was drying and in Q2 I was lucky make it in P10. In the end, it was the best I could do today.”

Verstappen’s Red Bull team-mate Perez qualified third and will start second after another improved qualifying session, following five races before Hungary without reaching Q3.

"It was a shame that I didn’t get Charles, but I think in these conditions It was good that we had a good session. It was very trick initially. We thought it would get a lot drier a lot quicker. It was still tricky in Q3.”

Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton was fourth for Mercedes and described the day as "hectic" and unpredictable.

"It was a guessing game to get the set-up right in these conditions with only one wet practice session and I have no idea what it will be like tomorrow!"

Saturday’s action at the Grand Prix will be dedicated to qualifying for the sprint race, dubbed the ‘sprint shootout’ and then the ‘sprint’ itself, with Verstappen's penalty not applying to the shortened standalone race.

S.Fujimoto--JT