Sprint pole margin 'not a big surprise' as Verstappen and Red Bull focus on 'our own race' at Spa

Max Verstappen believes that losing out on Sprint pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix was "not a big surprise" as the Red Bull driver finished half a second behind pace-setter Oscar Piastri.

The four-time World Champion split the two McLaren drivers at Spa-Francorchamps during the Qualifying session, and will start alongside Drivers' Championship leader Piastri for Saturday's 15-lap Sprint.

Piastri and McLaren team mate Lando Norris dominated proceedings on Friday, topping FP1 and all segments of Qualifying between themselves as Verstappen proved to be their only realistic challenger.

Even armed with a low-downforce set-up to take advantage of the numerous high-speed sections, Verstappen believes the outright gap to Piastri will make it difficult to beat him in the Sprint.

"Being P2 between them I think is a really good result for us and I do think we maximised," said Verstappen post-session.

"I enjoyed it out there, the lap itself was fine, was good. Of course the gap is very big but it's been big already from FP1 so that's not a big surprise. We just have to focus on ourselves and work on the balance of the car, try to go faster.

"When you're almost five tenths off I don't think going faster or slower on the straight is going to matter a lot. We just have to do our own race and see what we can do."

Red Bull brought numerous upgrades to Spa this weekend, including a new front suspension and cooling system packages, but with only one Free Practice session before Sprint Qualifying, Verstappen was unsure of their potential.

"It's always difficult in a Sprint weekend to say exactly what they do of course but when you look at the gap, it's not what we want right?" he said. "But we keep improving, keep trying to find more performance but other teams do the same thing so that's just how it goes."

Team mate Yuki Tsunoda failed to reach the final segment of Sprint Qualifying, finishing SQ2 down in 12th having failed to match Verstappen for another weekend.

"I missed out by six hundredths, I think that obviously it's very tight," Tsunoda explained after the session. "Just like usual, is a very tight session and each detail counts.

"I tried my best, I think obviously every driver has it where you look back at some bits and bobs we can improve as usual. At least I know that it's something I can improve but at the same time, missing out like this, it's frustrating."