Life after Christian Horner begins with sprint win for Max Verstappen

Max Verstappen won the first Formula One race staged following Christian Horner’s dismissal as Red Bull team principal in Saturday’s sprint race in Belgium.

Eighteen days after Horner was told his two-decade reign was over, Verstappen claimed the Red Bull’s first win of any sort since he raced to victory in Imola on May 18th.

Verstappen started second, but batted aside pole-sitter Oscar Piastri on the opening lap before keeping the world championship leader at bay.

Verstappen crossed the line in Spa-Francorchamps just 0.753 seconds clear of Piastri. Lando Norris started third and finished in the same position to allow Piastri to extend his title lead from eight points to nine ahead of qualifying later today for Sunday’s main event.

Horner’s dramatic exit from Red Bull after 20 years in charge stunned the sporting world, and the Belgian Grand Prix marks the first F1 event in 406 races where he has been watching on from his sofa rather than from the Red Bull pit wall.

Verstappen split the McLaren drivers in qualifying to join Piastri on the front row. Piastri started well to keep Verstappen behind on the short run to La Source only for the Dutchman – armed with a low-downforce rear wing to provide greater speed up through Eau Rouge and on to the Kemmel Straight – to jink to his left and sail past Piastri under braking for Les Combes.

Further back and Norris – a distant six tenths behind Piastri in qualifying – was perhaps too timid on his brakes into the same corner, and lost out to Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, relegating him to fourth.

On lap four, Norris cleared Leclerc to regain third spot, and by lap 10 he was within half-a-second of team-mate Piastri – the top three covered by a little more than a second.

With four laps