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/

 

[Brogan]

Pirelli aren't happy with Red Bull and the whole tyre mess: http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/94115

Red Bull technical chief Adrian Newey admitted that his outfit had been worried about the tyre situation in the build-up to the race.

Speaking to the BBC about how he felt, he commented: "I have to say, it is one of the scariest races I have been involved in ever. It is heart-in-the-mouth stuff, because first and foremost our duty of care is to the drivers' safety, and you are trying to make that call or making sure the car is safe while not excessively handicapping ourselves from a performance point of view.

"I found it quite a difficult judgement to make, and at the end of the race I was very relieved that both our drivers were safe."

Surely if they were that concerned about the safety of their drivers they would have changed the set up, replaced the tyres and started from the pit lane?

 

[Josh]

Maybe the drivers thought it would be okay?

 

[Galahad]

I know, Bro - "we care deeply about our drivers' safety...but not so much that we want put a decent result at risk by making the cars safe"

That's a little harsh I know, but basically that is what they did.

 

[Jos the Boss]

Welcome back first corner incidents we missed you!

 

[Pyrope]

Hardly fair on other teams if they are allowed to change the rules post hoc. If your car is so badly set up and your drivers so careless that your tyres get shredded during qualification then you take the pain and start from the pit lane. Don't go whinging to the authorities begging for a rule change at the last minute. Pillocks.

 

[Andrea_Moda_Rules]

Wow finally watched the race, Been working today

That was a great Race in Parts some of the overtakes , I made a mess of my pants when Webber went past Alonso through Eau Rouge. I think Webber shown there he may just be still motivated enough to stay in F1

My 2 cent on the Hamilton Vettel incident.

Ive seen the majority of top drivers over the last 18months/2 years postion the car to defend into the corner on the inside and then change there line to take the wdier line into the corner. Its just not on. It has been an accident waiting to happen for a while and hamilton kobysahi are lucky it wasn't an even bigger accident. You postion a car to enter the corner and you stick to it. Hopefully this is a wake up call for everyone. Sort of disspointed there wasn't a reprimand of some sorts fo Hamilton, but considering others havent been punished perhaps it would of been harsh. Maybe a stern finger wagging and a talking to for every driver will do the trick.

I aslo felt that the penalties for Senna and Glock were harsh, Its the first corner it can be very difficult at the best of times, first time on high fuel loads on a dry track, Theres never much room into La source anyhow because its so slow and tight.

Senna i think did quite well considering he has impressed me. But yeah some awesome racing moves out there a pretty Good race.

 

[KekeTheKing]

Lauda - in the BBC post race - said the tangle with Lewis into Les Combes wasn't Kobayashi's fault.

And yet who did Lauda say was going to "kill someone" by attempting a somewhat similar maneuver in Canada. That's right, the guy behind.

 

[gdeacon7]

I don't think anyone has recognised the similarities between Ham/Kob and But/Ham in Canada. In both cases, it seems the lead driver was unaware of the following car which manages to get an overlap (their front tyres in front of the lead car's rears). So as the lead driver drifts across to the outside to open up the angle into the corner, they force 2 cars into 1 space. Braking is not an option (for the chasing driver) because the cars are interlocked by this stage. Yesterday Hamilton seemed to take to the middle of the road to defend, and Kob probably took this as a sign that Lewis knew he was there. Entering the braking zone Ham drifted left (in relation to the track, even if he didn't physically steer left) and at the moment of contact,there was no longer a car-width to his left for Kob to fit into. Evidently plenty of people here are keen to assign blame to the incident, but I think it was a racing incident, just as Canada's incident was. It seems the problem is with visibility and not knowing where the cars around you are. The only sense in which Hamilton was unfortunate is that his car came off worse both times: when behind in Canada, when in front at Belgium.

 

[racecub]

One thing I was surprised at was Mark didn't put the soft tyre on at his last stop.

Surely he could have challenged for the lead if he had?

I think its because he's harder on the tyres than Seb and might not have lasted to the end on the softs.

 

[Abnash24]

did anyone actually notice buttons missing right wing mirror prior to him saying so or was it just eagle eyed no lifes like me?

 

[Chasz]

did anyone actually notice buttons missing right wing mirror prior to him saying so or was it just eagle eyed no lifes like me?

I think we all noticed it We are all losers here

 

[Fenderman]

I suppose none of us noticed chunks of his rear wing end plate flying off in the 1st corner either.

 

[Brogan]

I saw him grinning inside his helmet as he passed Les Combes on lap 12

 

[tooncheese]

Can anyone fill me me in what happened? I watched qualifying in the hotel (not entirely sure what was going on), and the race in a bar at the airport in a foriegn language (plane delayed for 5 hours after fuel tanker crashed into wing a wrote it off ).

 

[Brogan]

Schumacher tried to qualify using 3 wheels in a vain attempt to save an extra tyre for the race.

Hamilton was penalised for Maldonado deliberately driving into him.

Kobayashi was not penalised for Hamilton driving his rear wheel into Kobayash's front wheel.

Senna ran out of talent at the first corner.

Rosberg was leading the race after passing Vettel on the first lap but then realised he had no business being out in front and dropped back.

The Red Bulls were going to fail due to badly blistered tyres but then decided to just make it a 1-2 instead

Button went from this to this

 

[Galahad]

You should turn that into a regular series, Bro!

 

[tranquility2k9]

I'm a bit late on posting my opinion on the latest Hamilton incident, but I'll give my take on it now.

The first thing I'd say is that whatever anyone's opinion is, it was careless from Hamilton. If he would have been more aware of Koboyashi, then he would have avoided the incident. However, what is very frustrating is that certain people such as Niki Lauda can get away with making out that Hamilton pulled off some kind of "dirty aggressive move". His critics are saying it as though he made a sudden movement left when Koboyashi had caught him up. If you watch the on-board replay then you will see that Lewis does not change his angle of steering at all for about 4 seconds before the incident. He had pointed his car towards being in the usual position for taking the corner when he was about 3/4 down the Kemmel Straight. His only error was his failure to recognise Koboyashi was going to end up beside him. I think because he had the DRS open and had passed Koboyashi, he almost assumed that he would not be troubled by him and when they made contact he was looking right and thinking about making the next corner. I think this is why Lewis has beat up on himself a bit on Twitter and admitted fault in the accident, because he was simply a little casual.

The fact of the matter remains though that Koboyashi did put his car in a strange place and would have seen Lewis heading towards the left-side of the track along time before they made contact. The obvious move for Koboyashi to make would have been to slow down a little, but then again, Koboyashi does not always make the most sensible decisions, which is why many people find him so exciting! For these reasons, whereas I initially thought Koboyashi was 100% to blame, I think I now think of it as a 50/50 incident.

I think the fact that Lewis has said it as 100% himself simply shows that all these people that are constantly having a dig at him are actually starting to hurt him a little. The Lewis of old would not have admitted 100% blame for that incident, he may not have even admitted any blame, but in no way or form was it 100% his fault, so why would he come out and say that? I think he has almost accepted now that he will get the blame for almost everything he does and that he seems to get treated differently to any other driver. This is a sad state of affairs in my mind.

I'm sorry but if the incident were the other way round, I would bet my house on Lewis being given a penalty and the exact same critics who are sticking up for Koboyashi, would be laying into Lewis for being "stupid", "too aggressive", "putting his car in a unnecessary place". It is so easy to imagine.

The same ridiculous viewpoints were displayed the day before with the Maldonado incident. Lewis' usual critics wanted to throw a portion of the blame on him. I still think that this incident was 100% Maldonado's fault. Yes Lewis made 2 moves, the 1st was either him simply not noticing that Maldonado had suddenly come up beside him, or a little gesture to say "what are you doing coming up beside me when the checkered flag has gone". Almost all racing drivers do that when someone comes past them, I have seen it happening so many times. I can remmeber Alonso doing it twice in a single practice session earlier in the year to show his annoyance at a driver who had either held him up or overtaken him when it was not appropriate. Either way, whatever the reason for that 1st move, Hamilton did not deserve a penalty for it.

The most farcical issue however surrounds the supposed 2nd move. At the point when Lewis supposedly made this second move, the curvature of the track naturally sways from left to right and therefore if Lewis had not of steered his car to the right then he would have crashed. If you watch Lewis' on-board replay, then you will see he remains the exact same difference away from the barrier and white line and that Maldonado literally veers left into him. What's also very convienient is that they did not have the on-board footage from Maldonado's car because if we had of seen that im sure the facts would have been even clearer. If Hamilton was guilty of not giving Koboyashi enough room then surely Maldonado was guilty of the same and this was not even in a race. The fact of the matter is that Hamilton did nothing wrong, was clearly shocked by the fact that Maldonado crashed into him and then gets a reprimand for it. This just sums up the sickening state of affairs with how F1 seems to treat him.

Maldonado even had the nerve to take another dig at Lewis after the race, even though he would not have even had a chance to view the incident himself. That really infuriated me and im sorry but I now will never look at him the same way again. I think is a nasty individual and I hope he loses his race seat at the end of the year.

I'll finish with this quote from Planet F1. I know you cannot take anything on there with any seriousness but, this did make me laugh:-

"Is Pastor Maldonado the scariest man in sport? His post-Spa interview was delivered with a stare that could put a weak-hearted man six foot under from a distance of ten yards and culminated in the remarkable, utterly-terrifying announcement that he regards Lewis Hamilton as "a really good friend."

Jeepers.

Just jeepers.

Fear and pray for his enemies."

 

[Brogan]

I'm sorry but if the incident were the other way round, I would bet my house on Lewis being given a penalty and the exact same critics who are sticking up for Koboyashi, would be laying into Lewis for being "stupid", "too aggressive", "putting his car in a unnecessary place". It is so easy to imagine.

Quoted for truth.

 

[Josh]

And if it was the other way around, what would people say about the driver in front? I vaguely remember something similar earlier this year with another driver not checking his mirrors before drifting left...

 

[Brogan]

Indeed.

And the driver behind was blamed for that incident, was he not?