Max Verstappen wins historic red-flagged race in Spa

The race at the Ardennes circuit was red flagged after just three laps behind the Safety Car due to heavy rain that had delayed the race start for more than three hours.

The barely drivable conditions at Spa were in evidence in the build-up to the race as Sergio Pérez lost control of his RB16B at Les Combes. The Mexican’s car slid into the barriers on the right side of the track breaking the suspension on the front right of the car.

The formation lap was then delayed for 25 minutes and when it eventually got underway the red flags were swiftly shown as drivers throughout the order declared the conditions undriveable.

Discussing the race win Max Verstappen commented “It is always good to win and the points are important but today is not how anyone wants to do it, especially on our 50th start with Honda. In hindsight it was very important to get pole yesterday and although it’s a big shame not to do some proper racing laps, as I really love coming to this track, it was just impossible in these conditions. I thought maybe at 15:30 the conditions were a bit better than just now when we tried to re-start but the visibility was still very low and I understand why we couldn’t race today.”

“For me in the lead the visibility was a lot better, even with the Safety Car ahead, but the guys behind me couldn’t see a single thing and if someone went off at Eau Rouge and bounced back onto the track they could have been T-boned at high speed which we do not want. It was also extremely low grip and because it kept raining all afternoon it just didn’t improve.”

“I think today the big credit goes to the fans around the track who stayed here the whole day in the rain, wind and cold. It must have been horrible to sit in those conditions so a big thanks goes to them and they should be the real winners from today. Now we have to keep on pushing and trying to regain the championship lead. I’m confident we have a good car and there is a long way to go so we just need to make sure we get the best performance out of it for the rest of the season.”


There followed an almost three-hour delay as officials waited for the conditions to improve. In that period, the Team delved into the sporting regulations and established that if they were able to repair Checo’s car he could start the race from the pit lane.

Just as in Hungary last year when Max crashed on his lap to grid and the mechanics got him repaired in 20 minutes, the crew dived into the work and though the damage to Checo’s car was more severe they managed to get the #11 car readied the eventually confirmed re-start at 18:17 local time.

The cars flowed out of the pit lane to follow the Safety Car around the circuit as race control prepared for a rolling start, but with the rain beginning to fall more heavily, the race was again quickly red flagged.