Verstappen does not think he can beat the McLarens today

Reigning world champion Max Verstappen insists that it will take an enormous effort to beat the McLarens of Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri after serving a ten-place grid penalty and lining up only in P11.

Max Verstappen was imperious in the tricky, half-wet conditions, topping all three qualifying segments to be fastest of all at the end by half a second.

However, as in the last two years, the Dutchman will move back to P11 on the grid, serving a ten-place grid penalty for exceeding his power unit allocation with a fifth internal combustion eninge.

“Today was a positive day. We were really strong, have maximised the car and have the best possible position for tomorrow. You always try and do the best lap possible; it was wet today and the conditions tomorrow will be better and I think it will all be about tyre management.

"Hopefully what we did today will help us with tyre management for tomorrow, and I felt more comfortable with the wing that we chose, so I hope I can come back into the fight with the other teams. There are many other fast cars out there who are really strong and I think the McLarens will be tough to beat tomorrow.

"Hopefully we can fight for a position with the grid place penalty and be back in the mix and I hope that we can be competitive. We hope that it won’t hurt us too much but we will see as the weather will be different, the wind will change and we will set up the car a bit differently. So we will see and we look forward to tomorrow," concluded the Dutchman.

His team-mate Sergio Perez meanwhile had a very welcome return to form in qualifying at the Belgian Grand Prix, showing encouraging speed across the entire session.

The Mexican endured a wobble in Q2 that saw him scrape into Q3 by just 0.003s. He only had a scrub set of intermediates for Q3, but an excellent effort saw him qualify third, but that will become a second spot on the grid due to Verstappen's engine penalty.

“It is a good boost of confidence for myself and the team to be starting on the front row tomorrow. It feels good to have momentum on my side and to hopefully have a strong result ahead of summer break.

"We had good pace all the way through qualifying, we changed the car’s balance dramatically from yesterday to today with everything focused on race pace. We managed to get nice, solid balance out there so I’m very pleased with that.

"It’s going to be a long race tomorrow, if I see an opportunity early on we’ll go for it but it is going to be a different scenario with weather conditions. Tomorrow is a new opportunity, and I’m looking forward to it as I think we are in a good position to fight for the victory."

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner praised the performance of his drivers after a challenging qualifying session. He revealed that Perez only had a scrub set of intermediates for the final qualifying segment which made his performance even more impressive.

"Max was on fire today. Both our drivers pushed it to the limit. Max was on it all through the session, right from the start. Exceptional qualifying from him and he could have even given a set of tyres back to Pirelli’s.

"He used fewer tyres to get to Q3 and then just two laps in Q3 to get the pole. But I have to say a big congratulations to Checo, only with scrub tyres in Q3, his middle sector on that scrub only two tenths off Max and to miss out on what would have been pole by only five hundredth’s for what is now a front row start, is a great effort.

"Max of course starts in 11th on the grid tomorrow, but as we have seen in previous years, there is plenty he can do from there so we are very much looking forward to what tomorrow brings."