Formula 1 engineers rarely wear their hearts on their sleeves.

Andrew Shovlin also does not tend to describe his complex world with striking formulations.

Last Sunday, not long after Max Verstappen's demonstration of power at the Belgian Grand Prix in Spa-Francorchamps, the chief engineer at Mercedes gave a glimpse of the state of mind of his victory-spoilt team: "It was a bit of a shock for us."

Anno Hecker

Responsible editor for sports.

  • Follow I follow

Verstappen and his Red Bull racing team have come this far since the start of the season in March until late summer: the Silver Arrow crew is blocked by the central nervous system at least for a moment when they look at the dominance of the Dutchman in the RB18.

The Red Bull challenger Ferrari already seemed paralyzed during the race, at least when the command center asked the chief driver Charles Leclerc which tires he wanted.

That sounded mostly like a shift in responsibility, the first source of defeat.

Leclerc no longer likes to count

It's not sealed yet.

But after 14 of 22 Grands Prix, Verstappen is well ahead in the drivers' standings, 93 points ahead of his team-mate Sergio Perez, 98 ahead of Leclerc.

Converted to the remaining time of the season, the Monegasque would have to catch up more than twelve points per race.

That is possible if Verstappen would only come fourth from then on and the Ferrari driver would win every Grand Prix.

Such are the dreamers among the Ferraristi.

The realists in the paddock have other things in mind.

"I've stopped counting how many points there are between me and Max," said Leclerc on Thursday in Zandvoort, "I'm looking from race to race." To the return to a race on an equal footing.

Zandvoort meets Ferrari

Ferrari has started swimming after the summer break at the start of the Spa-Zandvoort-Monza trilogy, three races in two weeks.

The gap to Red Bull of one or two tenths of a second per lap shot up to six in Belgium.

A humiliation – seen from the outside.

But the Grand Prix of the Netherlands on Sunday (3 p.m. in the FAZ live ticker for Formula 1, on RTL and Sky) should save Ferrari from sinking.

In the country of the world champion, on Verstappen's slope, in front of its orange-clad fan base, the Scuderia thinks they've come across a kind of life raft in the middle of the dunes behind the North Sea.

Because the route, with its "slow" and "medium-speed" corners, suits the car's performance profile much better than the high-speed passages at Spa.

There, Mercedes also felt compelled to increase the ground clearance of the Silver Arrow in order to reduce the up and down swinging of the cars, including painful ground contact, to a tolerable and permissible level.

A lot of speed was lost immediately.

Only Red Bull was spared the loss of momentum.

Defect stops Verstappen

And so the distanced pursuers in Zandvoort rely on a rapprochement without major artifice and even hold out the prospect of attacks.

At the first training session on Friday, there are already signs of that.

However, Verstappen had to watch after nine minutes due to a technical defect.

George Russell set the best time in the Silver Arrow ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz (Ferrari).

Perez needed almost a second longer than the fastest.

Will Mercedes and Ferrari have a chance on Verstappen terrain?

That would put the beautiful story of the great magic of man and his machine into perspective a bit.

Verstappen has been circling in public perception as a champion in his own orbit since Spa, untouchable.

The second world title will be hard to take from him.

But the race, says Leclerc, goes on: "There is still a lot to win." Or to prevent it in this way: After nine wins and eight remaining races, Verstappen could break the record of Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel (13 successes in one season ) break.

He's on his way to a new era as Ferrari stumbles over itself under tremendous pressure and Mercedes falters.

One has the best chance of slowing him down: teammate Perez in a halfway identical car.

He started from Spa second and arrived second.

That is worthy of all honor.

However, Verstappen roared twelve grid positions behind the Mexican and still finished 17.8 seconds ahead of him.

As the?

Perez did not give a glimpse into his inner life on Thursday when he described his helplessness.

But if the chief engineer at Mercedes got a little shock, then Perez must have been hit harder.