Spa is getting the full 2026 treatment this weekend, and the FIA’s latest decision tells you plenty about where Formula 1 still draws the line with active aero.
Straight-line mode will be available on the approach to Eau Rouge for the Belgian Grand Prix, part of a hefty five-zone allocation around the lap — the highest total since the season opener in Australia. That’s a big statement for a circuit that punishes hesitation, because it effectively turns the run from La Source down to the foot of the hill into another managed deployment moment for drivers and engineers.
But the governing body has been careful to underline the obvious: active aero won’t be permitted through Eau Rouge/Raidillon itself. In other words, F1 is happy to let the cars trim out on the way in, but once the road starts climbing and the compression bites, you’re back in the world of traditional commitment.
That balancing act has defined the early months of the new regulations. Teams want more opportunities to use straight-line mode because it’s a tool for both racing and lap time. The FIA wants the spectacle without creating a situation where the most famous flat-out section in the sport becomes a numbers game about who dares to keep the car in its lowest-drag configuration for half a heartbeat too long. Spa is Spa; there are places you don’t try to outsmart physics.
All of that would probably be enough to chew on for a normal race week. It isn’t a normal race week, because Verstappen-to-McLaren just won’t go away — and the ripples are now hitting the sort of people who don’t enjoy being photographed in cafés.
Helmut Marko has refused to say what was discussed in a private meeting with Jos Verstappen and Max Verstappen’s manager Raymond Vermeulen in the days after Red Bull’s miserable British Grand Prix. The picture, posted by De Telegraaf’s Erik van Haren, did the rounds quickly and inevitably fed into the wider narrative: Verstappen is said to be in advanced talks to leave Red Bull for McLaren for 2027.
Marko’s response was icy and brief. “My visit was private,” he said, when asked about it.
That line might read like a brush-off, but it’s also telling. Marko has never been shy about defending Red Bull’s position publicly, and he knows perfectly well what a shot like that does in the middle of a paddock rumour cycle. Refusing to engage doesn’t kill the story; it signals that everyone involved understands how sensitive it’s become.
And it’s sensitive because it’s not just a driver-market whisper. If the reigning champion is genuinely considering a move, it’s an institutional question about where the competitive centre of gravity is headed under the new rules — and how stable Red Bull’s post-Horner world really is.
Sergio Perez, for one, offered a reminder this week of the way Red Bull has traditionally been wired. He revealed that when he joined the team, Christian Horner bluntly told him they ran a second car “because they have to”. Perez’s takeaway was even starker: everything at Red Bull was built around Verstappen, and that never changed during his four seasons there.
Perez didn’t frame it as bitterness, more as clarity. It’s not news to anyone who’s been watching, but there’s something about hearing it stated so plainly that snaps the picture into focus. If Verstappen leaves, Red Bull isn’t simply losing a driver. It’s losing the axis around which its entire operating model has rotated.
Which brings the conversation back to McLaren — and not just in terms of whether it can tempt Verstappen, but whether it’s set up to be the sort of team that can sustain two superstars.
Lando Norris, asked directly about the Verstappen threat, didn’t blink. He said he believes he can “beat any driver” and feels like a more complete racer than he was during his 2025 title campaign. The careful wording was there — it always is in these situations — but the message wasn’t exactly subtle. Norris isn’t lobbying for protection; he’s daring the idea.
That’s the public-facing psychology of it. The more awkward bit is what happens behind the scenes if McLaren is seen as the destination for a reigning champion while it still hasn’t won a Grand Prix in 2026 — especially with Mercedes winning seven of the first nine races and leading both championships.
That contrast is what powered Guenther Steiner’s broadside at McLaren this week. With both McLaren and Mercedes running Mercedes HPP power units, McLaren has pointed to differences in understanding of the new engine era compared to the works outfit. Steiner’s response was pure Steiner: if you want the insight and leverage of a works team, stop complaining and become one. “Grow up,” essentially, and build your own engine.
It’s a provocative line, but it lands because it pokes at a real tension in the current landscape. Customer teams can be brilliantly run, brilliantly engineered, and still find themselves reaching for explanations when the works squad is extracting more. Sometimes that gap is hardware, sometimes it’s software, sometimes it’s simply the depth of integration you get when the power unit is truly yours.
McLaren won’t make a strategic decision of that scale on a radio rant from Steiner, but the criticism does frame the bigger question behind the Verstappen noise: what exactly is McLaren offering? A seat next to a champion in a team that believes its trajectory is pointing sharply upward — or a political and technical gamble where the foundations still aren’t as solid as the ambition?
Spa, with its five straight-line mode zones and its insistence on keeping Eau Rouge “honest”, feels like a fitting backdrop for that whole conversation. The sport is evolving quickly, but some corners still force you to commit. The same may be true for the choices being weighed in the paddock right now.
