As Max Verstappen slips to fourth place in qualifying, Red Bull says it has upped its downforce levels anticipating a wet Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday

What makes this tough for McLaren is the context. Norris has been their guy since 2019. He stayed loyal when the car was barely fighting for points. He was patient when others — Carlos Sainz, Daniel Ricciardo — came and went. He’s also just 25. This was supposed to be his era.

McLaren F1 CEO Zak Brown insists he was “not surprised” by the sudden departure of arch rival Christian Horner at Red Bull. Horner, 51, was relieved of his duties as team principal and F1 CEO at Red Bull Racing after 20 years in the role. Laurent Mekies, formerly of sister team Racing Bulls, has taken over ahead of this week’s Belgian Grand Prix.

With Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on the front row in Spa, team boss Andrea Stella says he will tell his drivers “lap 1 is just lap 1 of 44”

Red Bull have introduced a new front wing configuration at the Belgian Grand Prix, which features changes to the camber and incidence of the mainplane and secondary flap, with the most obvious visual changes to be found in the outboard section (green arrows), whereby there’s some small changes to the twist geometry.

A new Red Bull era begins under Mekies at this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix. He was appointed after 18 months at Racing Bulls. He worked at Ferrari for five years, as deputy team principal and racing director, and at the F.I.A., which governs Formula 1, for four years, initially as safety director and then deputy race director.

GEORGE RUSSELL is on the brink of a new £30million-a-year Mercedes deal with Max Verstappen set to stay at Red Bull for another year. The British driver has been hashing out talks with Merc over