Grand Prix 2019 Belgian Grand Prix Practice, Qualifying & Race Discussion

If you say the word Spa to most women, the vast majority would probably think of a luxury place where they can get a massage, facial, manicure and pedicure or any number of other beauty treatments. Not me though, for me if you say the word Spa my eyes light up and I think of probably the best race track on the current F1 calendar. This is a track where over the years we've had a lot of exciting races full of thrills a spills. A track which if you ask the drivers to name their favourite circuits, it will most likely be in the top three they come up with. A drivers track, a track with history and a classic that seems to mean more when you finish first. Congratulations you’ve just won Spa!!

Spa has always been a challenge but even in the years I’ve been watching F1 it’s been sanitised to some degree. The Bus Stop when you almost used to stop and indicate to turn off onto a small side road before rejoining the track was always something I enjoyed, that is long since gone. Thankfully Eau Rogue is still something of a challenge but even that is not what it used to be. Most drivers will tell you that it’s still a hell of a corner but often these days they take it flat. Yet think back a few years and most people would look at you like you needed your head testing is you even suggested such a thing.

In 1998 Jacques Villeneuve tried taking Eau Rouge flat and crashed his Williams Mecachrome spectacularly, nothing that remarkable there, a lot of people have done so over the years. It was a pretty heavy crash but he was quickly out of the car and back to the pits again. Did he learn from it though? Did he hell?

Fast forward to 1999 and Jacques is with BAR, his team mate is a young Ricardo Zonta and the two drivers got talking. Apparently they came up with a bet or dare, call it what you will and the fans who watched qualifying that year were in for a sight they wouldn’t forget, I was one of them. As a Jacques Villneueve fan I was on the edge of my seat as he set off, I recalled all too clearly what had happened the year before.

Apparently Villeneuve dared Zonta to take Eau Rouge flat. As I say, these days it seems unremarkable, back then it almost seemed like a death wish. Villeneuve went out first and attempted to take the corner flat, just as he’d said. Much as in 1998 he tried and failed. His crash was worse than 1998, he was heard to comment afterwards ‘at least I rolled it’. His younger and much less experienced team mate then went out. Even after seeing what had happened to Villeneuve, Zonta stuck to his word and he too attempted to take the corner flat, his crash was even worse than Villeneuve’s. I do recall the look of total disbelief on Craig Pollock’s face at what his two drivers had done to his teams' cars. Both drivers thankfully walked away from their wrecked cars and a lesson was learnt, no, you couldn’t take Eau Rouge flat at that time, but it hadn’t stop them trying. You have to wonder why they tried it in the first place, bravado? Stupidity? That need to be on 'the edge' as Jacques himself used to say? The thrill of pushing man and car to the limit? It could be any or a combination of all of these things, I just remember it was both exciting and yet horrifying to watch them try it at the time.

Spa is also subject to the weather effect, catch your pitstop just right as it begins to rain and you’re a hero, miss that pit entry just as the heavens open and the likelihood is your race is ruined, mostly just due to the length of the track as it's the longest on the current calendar. By the time you've tiptoed all that way back around to the pits again, it's probably too late to save your race. That is part of the joy and agony of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit and what makes it still one of the races in the season that I, and most likely a lot of you, most look forward to, probably a lot of the drivers do too. It always offers up the chance of a brilliant race and thankfully it still sometimes produces one too.

Last year your pole sitter was Hamilton and the podium was as follows. 1st Vettel, 2nd Hamilton, 3rd Verstappen.
Who will be there this year? Would anyone bet against a Mercedes winning the race? Earlier in the season I'd have said no, but with Max Verstappen driving his socks off in a resurgent Red Bull, plus hopefully a threat from either of the Ferrari drivers, it's far from a foregone conclusion. That is just how we like it

Edited to add the banner, we used to have a banner at gp.com for each race, I thought I'd add one of them to this thread and then I forgot to do it, until now ;)

.
belgium10.jpg.jpg
 
Last edited:
Please don't let Ferrari screw up tomorrow! Please.

That new upgraded Mercedes engine isn't looking that good, first Perez has a major issue, now Kubica does. Mind you the upgraded Ferrari engine isn't much better with Giovinazzi having a problem with it. Clever of them to let Alpha run it first to iron out the kinks though.
 
i got to say on holiday it did make qualifying more exciting. having seen nothing before hand

but it does give them time to discuss F1 matters in more detail. which came in handy discussing all events of the last 2 weeks. is great to listen too if not riveting on track
Well, we probably don’t want to read to much in that 0.75 second qualifying advantage. Vettel completely muffed the second sector of his lap and I gather the two Mercedes were turned down so as make sure their engines didn’t grenade.
 
Vettel completely muffed the second sector of his lap

but that's qualifying getting a lap hooked up under pressure vettel didnt twice & leclerc did. he got pole, i dont expect him to run & hide but thats still same car same track. 3/4 of a second
 
i got to say on holiday it did make qualifying more exciting. having seen nothing before hand

I'll be honest since the bordom of France I've now got a current mode of not even watching quali and just reading about it. All the races have been pretty interesting since then.
 
Don't worry Angel, Ferrari will not need to do anything. The times for the Ferrari drivers were obtained by having low down force which means that the tyres will slide more; in the race simulations the Mercedes were outlasting Ferrari by several laps. It will be Hungary all over again but with different drivers.

Incidentally, the lap where Albon is being compared to Verstappen Albon's was clean whereas Verstappen lost tenths by a bad mistake. In am not saying that Albon is not fast but we need a few more laps before we start making comparisons.

Ghasly was being hailed as the new great young driver when he got a fourth early in his career.
 
but that's qualifying getting a lap hooked up under pressure vettel didnt twice & leclerc did. he got pole, i dont expect him to run & hide but thats still same car same track. 3/4 of a second

Vettel and Leclerc were running close to each other through all the qualifying sessions and free practice sessions. Vettel just blew a lap.
 
Given the incident in the F2 race, I am in two minds about whether there should even be an F1 race today. Sometimes, there are bigger things than sport.

yes i see that point i know they cancelled both F2 races rightly & they have a minute silence. im fully expecting no champagne. but i cant talk about the mood because it was before my time. but they carried on racing in 1994 after ratsenberger passing in qualifying. so some people want to carry on
 
Considering how safe virtually every circuit has been made in recent years,it does seem odd that that particular spot at Spa seems to have escaped modification, seeing how many massive crashes have happened there.
 
In the 60's and 70's and before they raced on with burnt drivers buried in their cars at the side of the track, just yellows, some days one luck runs out, if it happened a couple of laps later when traffic was less bunched he may have walked away, it was just a bad combination of a survivable accident and the car at right angle to a following car and drivers with no way to go. Safety costs money, whether there is that amount of money in F2 to build cars to F1 standards who knows. I seem to remember catch fencing stopped this type of accident but caused other safety problems as the driver couldn't be extracted from the car because it was encased in fencing mesh at times.
 
Considering how safe virtually every circuit has been made in recent years,it does seem odd that that particular spot at Spa seems to have escaped modification, seeing how many massive crashes have happened there.

I was discussing this of course was the only talk of motorsport convocation, but the run off isn't the big problem because 180mph tarmac run off would need to be trebled its impractical, but it was the barrier at fault it needs to be better at absorbing the energy. because it was the bouncing off back on to the racing line that was issue not the run off
 
They will race and I guess it's a judgement call on whether each of us feels they should. F1Brits_90 is right, they did so Imola after Roland Ratzenberger lost his life and before that in even more awful circumstances as Dartman says.

We just have to hope nothing like that happens again this afternoon and you can be sure the drivers will have it on their minds as they get strapped into their cars today, they're bound to. No circuit is ever going to be completely 100% safe, no motor racing is either. Sure we see huge crashes and the drivers get out and walk away but sometimes, sadly, they don't. F1 and motor racing will go on though, as will F2 I'm sure, it always does.
 
I knew the 60s and 70s argument would come out from someone. I get what's being said and you're all probably right and the race will go without incident but what if it doesn't? F1 seems to have a long history of "let's carry on it will be alright". Imola should probably never have got to race day with my driver in critical condition and another dead but they carried on, a wheel flew off into the crowd and they carried on, Senna was obviously in critical condition and they re-started the race. A wheel went bouncing down the pit lane taking out mechanics and they still got them all up on the podium. More recently there was a well predicted monsoon about to hit a Grand Prix and they wouldn't even move the start time.

I dunno maybe i'm 'health and safety gone mad' but if someone dies doing something maybe it's a good time to take stock for a few days. When this accidents happend at Alton Towers the park wasn't open for business the next day was it?
 
Back
Top Bottom