Sawt Falasteen - Penalised Verstappen aims to end winless streak from 11th on grid

The series leader and three-time world champion had been given a 10-place grid penalty after Red Bull fitted his car with a fifth new engine this season, exceeding the limit of four, but made light of that with a scintillating display in qualifying on Saturday.

He was fastest in one minute and 53.159 seconds to outpace Ferrari's Charles Leclerc by six-tenths of a second, but as in 2023, it will be Leclerc at the front of the grid with Sergio Perez of Red Bull, who ended a recent nightmare run in qualifying.

Seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes was fourth and will line-up third on the grid with fellow-Briton Lando Norris of McLaren ahead of his team-mate Oscar Piastri and George Russell in the second Mercedes.

"It's going to be a very different day tomorrow," said Verstappen, who is bidding for a fourth consecutive Belgian triumph.

"Drier and much warmer so it will be very different. I will just try and stay there in lap one and see how it goes from there."

Verstappen won from sixth on the grid last year and from 14th in 2022, but said he was wary of feeling confident of working through the field to add to his 61 career victories this time on the newly-resurfaced circuit.

The Dutchman has not won since last month's Spanish Grand Prix and said he recognised he faced a challenge to overcome his rivals.

"We're not making it easy on ourselves, and especially, of course, in the battle that we're in," he said. "I know that today was a great day, but it's in the wet. We need to be quick in the dry tomorrow and it's going to be a tough battle."

His Red Bull team boss Christian Horner had forecast before qualifying that Verstappen would be aiming for a podium finish, explaining that he felt a win was unrealistic.

"It's going to be much tougher than in past years," said Horner.

- 'Thank you to the mechanics' -

Verstappen's starting position will give him an excellent opportunity to pass several cars off the grid, but in a crowded midfield going into the La Source hairpin, he recognised that it could be perilous.

"You can lose a race in Turn One," he said. "So I just need to see what happens at the start and go from there.

"It's a very long race and it's very hard on tyres. We just need to try and manage that as good as we can and hopefully then we can be competitive."

He said that it had been "a nice qualifying", adding that "luckily, the weather was ok" after the earlier final practice session was washed out by heavy rain.

"I'm very happy that the car was doing quite well in the wet conditions I could just try to do clean lap times."

Less than a week after his swearing radio rant at the team, he used his slow-down lap this time to thank his mechanics who worked overnight, breaking the F1 curfew rules, to prepare his car.

"Well done, everyone," he said. "And thank you to the mechanics for working so late, last lap, great job. Thank you very much."

Carlos Sainz was eighth in the second Ferrari ahead of compatriot and two-time champion Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin, Esteban Ocon of Alpine and Alex Albon of Williams, who will be 10th on the grid ahead of Verstappen.

H.Jarrar--SF-PST