Christian Horner believes dominant driver Max Verstappen could have returned his tyres to Pirelli and still won qualifying in the wet Belgian Grand Prix.

Spa was hit by heavy rain ahead of qualifying at the grand prix, leading to the postponement of the F2 sprint race, although conditions had started to dry ahead of the session where Verstappen was penalised 10 places for using a new combustion engine.

Verstappen used a single set of tyres in each session in Q1 and Q2, while the remaining 19 cars all swapped to a fresh set in the first sector, with the Red Bull driver being quickest with a 1:53.169 to win qualifying.

Charles Leclerc was nearly 0.6s behind in P2, but will start on pole while Verstappen will be 11th.

Looking back on the session, Red Bull boss Horner had plenty of praise for the world champion, who has also been handed a similar penalty after winning qualifying at Spa in 2022 and 2023.

“It was a great session and both drivers did very well,” Horner told Viaplay.

“Max was able to return a set of tyres to Pirelli, which he did throughout the session.

“He used less tyres than [the rest of the pack] to get into Q3 and then both laps [in Q3] were good enough to take pole position.

“I have to congratulate Checo too, he only used scrubbed tyres in Q3, and his mid-section on scrubbed tyres was only two-tenths behind Max.

“To miss pole position by just 0.011 seconds and start on the front row was a great effort.”

Horner’s hopes for race day

“I like the wet [to race], but today will be a nice, dry day.

“It’s going to be a very tight race, but today we optimised, that’s the most important thing.

“We had a 10-place penalty [to Verstappen], we’ll start 11th and the McLaren team is not on the front row.

“They’ll be very quick, but we have Checo on the front row, so we’ll see what we can do in the race.”