28/07/2025
NEWS STORY
Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton believe that officials were over-cautious in delaying the start of the Belgian Grand Prix by over an hour.
During the initial formation lap behind the Safety Car, pole-man Lando Norris said that visibility was the issue not standing water. Meanwhile, Alex Albon was told that further rain was expected in around nine minutes.
It was over an hour before the field headed out again, once again following the Safety Car, and while the rain had long ceased to fall, indeed the sun was shining, there remained concern, consequently the first four laps of the race took place behind the Safety Car ahead of a rolling start.
Many believed that the FIA had been over-cautious from the start, feeling that when the field originally headed out a few laps behind the Safety Car would have shifted much of the standing water and thereby reduced the spray.
However, a number of drivers, aware of the threat of rain, had gone into qualifying with a wet set-up and as conditions improved ahead of the start looked set to lose out.
"We made a choice with the set-up and they only allowed us to drive in almost slick conditions, so yeah, it was a bit disappointing," said Verstappen. "Of course we spoke after Silverstone to be a little bit more cautious with the decisions, but this was at the other extreme for me.
"It was a choice that we made with the setup of the car," he added. "It was then of course the wrong one, because they didn't allow us to race in the wet. Once we got to the dry tyres, we were just too slow on the straight. And then with the general balance problems that I already have with this car, it made everything just a bit worse.
"This for me it was the other extreme," he said of the delayed start. "It ruined a nice classic wet race as well. We either still try to push to go for a wet race or we just say you know what we stop racing in the wet and wait for it to be dry, but it's not what you want.
"You make all the decisions based on wet racing," he continued, "so then also it just ruins your whole race a bit. I mean, realistically, P3, it would have been the highest possible. We were very close to that. At the same time it also still highlighted our weaknesses in the car. And yeah, that's something that is not so easy to fix."
"We obviously started the race a little too late, I would say," agreed Lewis Hamilton, who initially revelled in the damp conditions. "I kept shouting, it's ready to go, it's ready to go, and they kept going round and round and round.
"So I think they were probably overreacting from the last race, where we asked them not to restart too early because visibility was bad. I think this weekend, they just made it a bit too much the other way. Because we didn't need a rolling start.
"I think it was just a reaction to Silverstone," he continued "we sat down and spoke about it and the drivers said in the last race we shouldn't have restarted.
"So I think they just focused on visibility, as soon as someone said visibility up ahead was really bad, which it wasn't great, but it wasn't as bad as the last race. I think they just waited to be sure.
"I think they still did a good job," he insisted. "Of course, we missed some of the extreme wet racing, which I think would have been nice. But for some reason, the spray here this year is like going through fog. I don't know what we're going to do to try and fix that."
GPDA director, George Russell, who always errs on the side of caution, disagreed.
"As racer, you always want to get going," he said. "You love driving in the rain. But the fact is, when you're doing over 200 miles an hour out of Eau Rouge, you literally cannot see anything, you may as well have a blindfold on.
"It isn't racing, it's just stupidity," he added.
McLaren, which scored its first 1-2 at the Ardennes track since 1999, also believed officials were correct in delaying the start.
"I think today the race was managed in a very wise way by the FIA," said Andrea Stella, "because we knew that there was a lot of rain coming, and I think on a circuit like this, if you make the calls late, it may be too late, and the outcome could be a difficult outcome.
"So I think being on the front foot is the right approach," he continued, "and delaying the race allowed us to race in wet conditions, and then we went into dry, but in fairness, we are in Spa, we didn't even know how long the dry race would have been, and we knew that there could have been wet conditions again at the end.
"So I think from our position as a team, we always praise the work of the FIA when this is deserved, and I think this is one of the cases in which this should be praised, because I understand that it would be quite entertaining to see cars going in wet conditions, but we all should be wary that the average speed in Spa is so high that the cars just displace such a large amount of water that it's just impossible to see.
"We have seen already in Silverstone that a car drove into the gearbox of another car, because it was impossible to see it, and it was lower and there was less water. So we don't want to see the same in Spa, so well done by the FIA."
Of course, it also reduced the odds of the team's warring drivers coming to grief as they battled for the lead on the opening lap.
Fact is, from quite early on it was clear that officials were concerned and considering various options. Sadly, it appears that along with much else, the 'tradition' of racing in inclement conditions will soon be lost.
Check out our Sunday gallery from Spa here.