Grand Prix 2011 Belgian Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

It's a long summer and the key discussions aren't about the F1.

As we are in the middle of the summer break, the SKY/BBC deal continues to take precedence over any on track action we saw at Hungary, which is a shame as we saw a cracker of a race where Jenson Button eventually won his second race of the season ahead of Sebastian Vettel who extended his lead at the top of the championship yet again and surely it takes a miracle for anyone to overtake him now with less than half the races to go.

However with Belgium coming closer on the calender, it seems as if Red Bull has lost the dominance it held over the first half of the season with McLaren appearing to have the best all round package with 4 wins now this year with 2 for Button and 2 for Hamilton. Ferrari aren't far behind and are perhaps the best team in warm conditions but that remains to be seen after a series of damp and cold races. However it would still be a foolish person to bet against Red Bull going into the Belgian Grand Prix where the fast sweeping corners and technical hairpins will no doubt play to their advantage.

Spa Francorchamps is regarded (quite rightly) as the best driver circuit on the calendar with the famous circuit having many variations from its original form to the current version which was last changed in 2006 to incorporate the new pit area and final chicane, the final chicane wasn't popular as both fans and drivers miss the challenging bus stop chicane and the 'new' pit lane which can cause problems.

The grand prix has been famous for it's unpredictable weather with violent storms and half the track being dry and the other wet at the same time and completely random showers, the big example was 2008 where a late shower caught out the entire field and cost Kimi Raikkonen (and eventually Hamilton) the win. In 1998 torrential rain caused one of the worst starts in F1 history where half the field was wiped out on turn 1, eventually (after a restart) Damon Hill won for Jordan in a 1-2 with Ralf Schumacher second, Michael Schumacher famously nearly started a fight with David Coulthard after crashing into him trying to lap him.

Michael Schumacher has an impressive record at this track, winning his first race at the track in 1992 and taking several wins at the track with his last coming in 2002 where he took his seventh world championship. However at the moment it is unlikely that he will add to his list of wins with the Mercedes well off the pace of the leading trio of Ferrari, Mclaren and Red Bull.

Mercedes might find themselves behind Force India at the race as the track suits them down to a tee, in 2009 Fisichella took a surprise pole position and then took second place just finishing behind Raikkonen in the Ferrari (who always seemed to win at Spa when he was driving there)
Sutil and Di Resta have shown impressive pace recently, with both achieving season bests at the last few races and are closing the gap to the flagging Renault team who have really lost performance since the start of the season with Heidfeld and Petrov dissapointing.

On a personal level I am really looking forward to this race as I have weekend tickets and will be at Pouhon all weekend to bring you the best coverage from the track, (better than these Sky lot anyway)

For Galahad's excellent circuit write up, see here http://cliptheapex.com/pages/circuit-de-spa-francorchamps/
 
Click to expand
Six of one, half a dozen of another, a classic "racing incident" just as Canada was. However, one thing it does call into question is David Coulthard's eyesight. His absolute insistence during the race commentary that Kobayashi turned in to Lewis was disproved by the very first replay, and the second, and every other replay. Yet he still kept banging on about it.
 
Contrary to what other's say that DC is biased to red bull I think that is false.
He is heavily biased however to the top teams and I reckon that is very clear to see.
 
As has been repeated by a few in this thread, the main issue was the way the incident was conveniently brushed under the carpet by the stewards. The video footage proves nothing - for example we don't know whether Kamui/Hamilton braked much later than they did in previous laps or whether there were any discrepancies in telemetry. Kobayashi also appeared to be carrying front wing damage prior to contact with Hamilton. These are very important observations when trying to establish a racing incident. For some reason the stewards went against protocol yet we here this shit all the time about them having access to data we don't. By refusing to look into it they conveniently excused themselves from scrutinizing available data. It doesn't matter who was to blame, there was a safety case here and they should've fully looked into it. Drivers should be able to race, safe in the knowledge that contentious incidents will be fully looked into. I'm sure Charlie would not have been happy had the stewards taken the same approach during his days as a race engineer.
 
KekeTheKing said:
On Lap 8 Vettel passed Kobayashi on the Kemmel Straight. We got a replay from Seb's onboard view, which gives us a great comparison with Hamilton's onboard after having having passed Kamui on Lap 13. Note the proximity of the respective cars to the circuit boundary.


I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
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Are there two longer shots which show by "how much" each car was ahead of Kobayashi?

If Vettel had been "much further ahead" of the Sauber, then that's less critical than if he was "barely ahead".

Also the edit shows Vettel passing Koba as they go by with the big tv screen on the right (the edit shows 7 seconds of footage before the freeze at the 50 Metre board)...but the Lewis edit doesn't show the pass on Koba (it shows about 4 seconds of footage before the freeze at the 50 Metre board).

Longer shots would show more than the one single angle, no? (The stewards make their decisions based on more than one angle...so it's hard to judge based on this one on board angle.)

It's a legitimate question.
 
KekeTheKing said:
I'll let you draw your own conclusions.
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Excellent work Keke.

I doubt however it will change the views of either group, least of all those who will take any opportunity to blame Hamilton given the slightest chance.

Look at Hamilton's steering wheel to see if he moves left, right or maintains a straight line at the time of impact.
 
KekeTheKing said:
Unfortunately not. The onboard replay was the only time we saw the Vet/Kob pass. But seeing that he passed him a hell of a lot closer to the corner than Lewis, I can't imagine there was a huge margin.
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Fair enough...but I went and edited my previous post.

It notes that you have 7 secs of footage for Vettel before the 50 metre board freeze...but about 4 seconds of footage for Lewis before the similar freeze at the 50 Metre board.

So, I don't know if we are getting the complete picture.

Lastly, because i'm asking this question, others on here are going to brand me as Anti-Hamilton and paint me with the same brush as all his detractors. I'm asking a legitimate question for which we don't have all the video.

I'm not interested in blaming Lewis here...just to clarify.

Cheers.
 
RayInTorontoCanada said:
the edit shows Vettel passing Koba as they go by with the big tv screen on the right (the edit shows 7 seconds of footage before the freeze at the 50 Metre board)...but the Lewis edit doesn't show the pass on Koba (it shows about 4 seconds of footage before the freeze at the 50 Metre board).
Click to expand

That's completely Irrelevant to the positioning of the vehicles in the turn-in/braking zone. The freeze is at the same point on the circuit (give or take a few inches).

RayInTorontoCanada said:
...but I went and edited my previous post.
Click to expand

You usually do.
 
KekeTheKing said:
That's completely Irrelevant to the positioning of the vehicles in the turn-in/braking zone.
Click to expand

I really don't want to incur your wrath, Keke, but the "positioning" of the cars would be wholly dependent on "how much of a gap" each over-taker had on the Sauber.

[Let's pretend neither Vettel nor Hamilton looked in his left side mirror. The only determining factor, then, would be how big of a gap each would have thought they had over the Sauber.]

There's no video which shows the gap VET-KOB going into Les Combes. It probably would have been a "big gap"/"big enough gap" for VET to take that line.

And that gap would have been very "relevant" to the positioning of the RB7.

Again, i'm not interested in making you "angry". I think I have some legitimate statements here.

Cheers Keke :friends:
 
It's just so unnecessary on Kamui's part. You do not gain anything by hanging it around the outside of Les Combes. Seeing that you've got another left coming up quick, you're actually putting yourself well out of position.

Ask Felipe how it worked out when he tried to challenge around the outside. Not good.
 

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