"We didn‘t want to be too greedy”: Red Bull explain why Max Verstappen didn’t pit for the fastest lap in Spa
Max Verstappen won the 2023 F1 Belgian Grand Prix, marking his eighth consecutive win of the season with a beautiful 1-2 finish for Red Bull.
However, the double world champion did not follow his traditions and pit for the fastest lap at the end of the race. Although he had a definitive lead over his teammate in second place and he could have pitted for a softer compound and earned another point, the team revealed that they did not want to 'risk' anything.
Red Bull boss Christian Horner revealed, according to AMuS:
"We didn‘t want to be too greedy. Nobody gets sleepless nights because of one point."
Even though the team made it quite clear that Max Verstappen wasn't going to pit for the fastest lap by the end of the race, he clung to the idea of doing the same, asking his race engineer about the same, but he declined to do the same.
Verstappen was still fast enough on the track and it felt like he was pushing. The track is a tire eater and more pushing would have meant that a pit stop would become inevitable. However, GP, his race engineer, confirmed that he wasn't pushing.
"I asked GP if Max was trying to create a pit stop gap. But he assured me that Max was not pushing. All the values were in the green," Horner said.
The fastest lap was then taken by Lewis Hamilton, who was trying to chase Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, but couldn't do any better than P4. The Brit built a great gap to the Aston Martin behind him and pitted on the final lap for the fastest lap, which he then achieved, adding an extra point to himself. Meanwhile, Max Verstappen and Red Bull extended their near-to-impossible lead on the top.
Max Verstappen getting closer to an all-time Formula 1 record
A decade ago during the 2013 season, a young Sebastian Vettel showcased similar dominance to Max Verstappen with Red Bull and achieved an incredible streak of nine wins in a row which has remained unbeaten till now.
However, with the victory Verstappen brought in Belgium, he now has eight consecutive wins this season, getting amazingly close to Vettel's F1 record. The fact that the Dutchman started the race P6 and still won with such a great lead over his teammate makes it quite apparent that he could easily break the record.
The next race will be in the Netherlands, Max Verstappen's home race, he could well come equal on the record and perhaps break it in the following race in Italy.