Grand Prix 2015 Belgian Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

So the second half of the F1 season will start with the epic race through the Ardennes forest that is Spa-Francorchamps. The track has more iconic corners and sections than most of the rest of the F1 tracks have put together. What would a modern F1 season be without a race here? Well I guess it would be 2003 or 2006 but lets forget those and say how F1 would not be F1 without a race here. The teams certainly enjoy it and after they've all be sunning themselves on beaches for the last month (apart from Ferrari of course who have secretly been developing parts with Haas in America....allegedly) so they will be raring to go. No one will want it to come round quicker that Mercedes who had a bit of a nightmare in Hungary. Both their drivers have a reputation of losing heart after a bad result and dropping form so they'll be hoping that things run smoothly in the first part of the weekend and they start to get back in the control position they have sat in for most of the season. With Ferrari winning the race on pure pace last time out though both the team and drivers will be forgiven for looking curiously over their shoulder. Is it possible that Ferrari could mount a second half of the season championship challenge? Vettel certainly seems to have got a sniff of it.

Away from the front pair with have a Red Bull team who will probably be depressed as hell that their form of double podium last time out will sink into nothingness as their engine power lets them down and dumps them back into the pack. Whilst they've had a lot of stick off everyone for how they keep complaining about the Renault engines after seeing how good their chassie was at a track that doesn't require as much engine grunt you start to see their point. Wherever they are in the field Danii Kvyat will hope he continues to take little chunks out of Ricciardo's points lead on him. The young Russian will be on a high after his first podium and he showed in GP3 days he's pretty good round Spa. That's not to say Ricciardo isn't on form though, he had a great race last time out, but he really needs to work on those starts. In the Red Bull B team the fight between Sainz and Verstappen will continue. Verstappen has the points upper hand after his 4th in Hungary but Sainz has usually come out on top on this one.

Will the McLaren revival be dead on arrival? Great results in Hungary but I can't see the Honda engine doing too well on the long straights of Spa and Monza. However both have been known to have a high attrition rate through crashes so maybe if the McLaren keeps it clean and tidy they'll continue to pick up points. That means from a McLaren point of view they have to hope Pastor Maldonado carries on as he has been doing for the Enstone team. 4 penalties in one race I think is a record for F1 and surely we are approaching a 1 race ban for Crashtor. It can't be doing Enstone any favours in the cash department either especially as they are supposed to be broke. They at least have Grosjean quietly doing a good job though. Williams should be on strong form at Spa but you never really sure which Williams you're going to get on race day. I'm sure they'll make it their priority to not get involved in a race with the Mercs but whether they can mix it up with the Ferrari's is anyones guess. One man who will probably be mixing it up in the top 10 as long as his car holds together is Nico Hulkenberg. Hulkenberg seems to have re-discovered his appetite for F1 after his Le Mans win. The other curve ball into the F1 mix at Spa might be Manor. The decision still hasn't been made on whether they will run their 2015 car with the 2015 Ferrari engine. If they decide to it could bump them up the field a bit and make everyone have to be on their toes in Q1.

I hope the run of good races F1 has will continue with this one but once again I can't see past a Hamilton pole and cruise to victory. Mind you I said that at Hungary.

 

[erinha]

Alain Permane (Lotus): “If Pirelli tells us the tyres last 40 laps, they can’t possibly blow up after 28 laps. For us a one-stop strategy was only a backup plan, but we considered it as well.”
Andy Green (Force India): “If Vettel’s tyres had been worn out, he’d have come into the pits. As soon as the rubber is worn below 30% the lap times go up by two to three seconds and tyre temperatures drop from 140°C to 110°C. You’re driving on ice in that case, you won’t even get anywhere near critical wear. Your team would call you in long before that happens.”
Maurizio Arrivabene (Ferrari): “A one-stop race was our plan A. We decided that at 11am, using the data the engineers had collected during the practice sessions. There was a Pirelli engineer standing in our garage and he wasn’t just chewing bubblegum. He would have intervened if the data had shown anything suspicious. Our strategy was aggressive, but not risky.”

I'm not the expert, but what they say makes sense to me.

 

[erinha]

By the way, I'm not saying it cannot blow up due to heavy impact. I'm saying it shouldn't.

 

[Brogan]

Maybe Vettel should have visited the Pirelli factory to get a better understanding of the tyres.

Oh wait...

Same as every time, there was a cut, debris, maybe something wrong with the bodywork, the driver went wide. Bullshit. If Nico tells us that he didn’t go off the track, he didn’t go off the track. Same with me, I didn’t go off the track, it’s just out of the blue, the tyre explodes.

I guess Vettel will need to watch the replay to see just how far he didn't go off the track.

 

[erinha]

I don't think going over the curbs or going 4 wheels slightly off the white paints is "far off the track" for the drivers. Unfortunately. I think you are splitting hairs. But I also think it probably happened around the same part of the track and due to impact. For Rosberg and Vettel.

How old were Rosberg's tyres on Saturday again?

By the way, I'm not saying it cannot blow up due to heavy impact. I'm saying it shouldn't.

Tyres DEFINITELY shouldn't blow up due to heavy impact that early on.

 

[The Artist.....]

Tyres don't always degrade; sometimes they just explode. See for instance Nigel Mansell above!

 

[The Artist.....]

However, if you continuously go over the serrated kerbs, you are running the risk of cutting the tyre.

 

[erinha]

By the way, did Alonso really say this: "I finished the race 40 seconds ahead of my teammate, almost a second faster per lap with the same equipment, when he won here a few years ago. The car performed well."
I thought there was problems with Jenson's car

More Sports: Alonso: "It's my best race at Spa" - MARCA.com (English version)

 

[RasputinLives]

^Otherwise known as driving around a racing circuit in a completely normal manner.

The key to that sentence is driving ROUND a circuit. That means staying with the white lines. In order to try to make drivers do that they put stuff there to try and make drivers not so that. It you some of that stuff the tyres take a pounding and if you're trying an extra long stint then you might pay for it.

Maybe it works differently in Toronto.

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

But they weren't breaking the rules by driving so aggressively over the kerbs. All drivers were doing it and no-one got penalised, so that particularly tactic became the 'normal' way of tackling the track. I think the FIA need to share some of the blame here by not enforcing the rules, and thus allowing the teams to legally take the tyres beyond their designed operating envelope.

 

[Brogan]

The issue is not the rules though, it's to do with how the tyres react when asked to do something they weren't necessarily designed to do.

Yes the FIA may have allowed it, but the drivers weren't forced to take that line.

 

[The Artist.....]

Brogan rufus_mcdufus

The stewards essentially endorsed drivers jumping the curve at raidillon throughout the race - even though they had initially had additional kerbs placed on top to prevent drivers running to gain an advantage.

My view is (and always has been), if a driver leaves the circuit, then they should have to return to the pits to have their car inspected. Vettel was regularly cutting that kerb, but so were Hamilton, Rosberg, et al. Either the stewards need to enforce the track limits at all points on a circuit, or they need to tell drivers that they can drive wherever they want.

It frustrates me when we hear that at some circuits, it is deemed that if you leave the circuit, you gain an advantage, but at others you don't; frankly, if you leave the circuit, you are not playing by the rules, and need to take a step back.

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

I don't have an issue with the drivers stretching the rules to the limit to gain an advantage. They were driving within the rules at Spa according to the FIA. The FIA also specify the operating requirements of the tyres. Unfortunately it seems the rules and the tyre requirements didn't quite meet up here. All I'm saying is I don't think it's 100% the fault of the teams. I don't think it's the fault of Pirelli at all, unless the tyres are proven to not be operating within the requirements. A large amount of blame lies with the FIA for allowing the teams/drivers to take such risks. There were also some moments where drivers nearly lost control due to being allowed too far over the kerbs.

 

[Brogan]

Just because the FIA permit it, it doesn't mean the drivers have to do it.

The kerbs were obviously removed as they were dangerous and the onus was then placed on the drivers to drive within the limits.

They are the ones driving the car - ultimately it is their responsibility to keep it on the track.
If they choose not to do so then they could suffer consequences such as losing control (as we saw) or suffering a puncture or tyre failure (again, as we saw).

The same thing happens in BTCC.
What we don't see there is drivers whining about how the tyres are inadequate.

 

[FB]

As a Sebastian Vettel fan can I just say that he has no else to blame but himself but he's not going to accept any responsibilty as none of the drivers ever do.

 

[erinha]

I find it mind boggling that fans find it reasonable when a tyre explodes before it reaches the performance limit.

 

[Dash Racing]

Here's the thing, it wouldn't bother me if a tyre failed after the 40 laps it was supposed to be able to do - I'd prefer a non-explosive failure of course, that's dangerous for everyone nearby. But to fail, catastrophically, after just a fraction of that? Not good. Be honest, is there anyone who knows F1 who thinks drivers don't attack the kerbs? I'm going to go ahead and say: not likely. So, with that being the case, isn't the onus on Pirelli to make tyres that will stand up to more punishment without failing catastrophically? You might say "but the regulations say". Sorry, it's the tyre manufacturer's responsibility to tell the FIA that the tyre standards as written are unsafe. Besides, it hurts their bottom line to have their products fail catastrophically on international television. It hurts their bottom line even more to deny that they did not test their tyres under normally expected conditions - in this case attacking the kerbs. Pirelli is in the wrong, but like all big businesses, they're too chicken**** to say that.

 

[teabagyokel]

Where did the figure of 40 laps come from? Extensive testing around the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, in which possibilities were evaluated and tyres improved? Stress tests at extreme speed on pieces of track such as Radillon, over off-the-road kerbs such as Radillon? Erm...

1. Pirelli's last test allowed with F1 machinery at Spa was at the 2014 Belgian Grand Prix
2. The piece of kerb all drivers were vaulting was inaccessible during practice 1 & 2 - i.e. the only long-runs Pirelli gets
3. No-one had run any of the equivalent tyres for 28 laps

Pirelli have to pluck the figures out of the air because they cannot test, apart from on Fridays. Ferrari did not test the tyres for 28 laps, then attempted to run the tyres for 28 laps. Does that not strike anyone as negligent?

If I was Pirelli, I would be getting out of Formula One pronto; they consistently produce what they are asked to, and they consistently get criticised for it by the very people who are abusing their products. Remember the "reversed tyres" trick in 2013? Turned out that they were designed that way for a reason as well.

 

[Brogan]

Not to mention the extreme camber Red Bull and other teams were using, in direct defiance of Pirelli who stated doing so was dangerous.

Didn't the FIA actually have to step in on that and impose maximum camber angles?

The fact is the teams and drivers always push the limits and in this case, the limit was found.

 

[rufus_mcdufus]

Pirelli don't think Vettel's tyre failure was related to running over kerb a little wider than normal just prior, but was wear-related.
Pirelli found more tyre cuts over Belgian GP weekend

 

[Titch]

If Pirelli are convinced that Rosberg's blow out was caused externally, and Vettel's was pure wear, even after considering his Gung-Ho attitude to the kerbs, surely there is no question as to the causes.
For a tyre to wear out after 28 laps though is is just plain madness.