The moment Mercedes Director cross fingers after being mesmerized by Max Verstappen’s….

MERCEDES lacked pace at the Belgian Grand Prix as Max Verstappen cruised to victory.

Mercedes technical director Andrew Shovlin has admitted he was “shocked” at Max Verstappen’s pace as the Dutchman dominated at the Belgian Grand Prix. Shovlin said he was keeping his “fingers crossed” Verstappen is not as quick around every track as the reigning champion won his ninth race of the season.

It comes after the momentum Mercedes appeared to have taken into the summer break was shattered. Lewis Hamilton was a staggering 1.8 seconds slower than Verstappen in qualifying on Saturday while George Russell was unable to keep on top of the Red Bulls on Sunday.

The moment Mercedes Director cross fingers after being mesmerized by Max Verstappen’s….

Shovlin said: “Well done to Max and Red Bull, he was in a different league today and would have won from anywhere on any strategy. It’s a bit of a shock how far ahead he has been this weekend; we’ve clearly got more work to do than we thought, fingers crossed he isn’t this fast around every track!”

He added: “The weekend overall has been tough. We’d hoped to move forward here with our updates and whilst it seems that Ferrari are closer to us on race pace, Red Bull are clearly not.” The FIA’s new technical directive on controlling porpoising was also introduced this weekend.