Belgium GP 2013: Race Reaction

After the F1 summer break, both fans and teams were looking forward to starting the second half of the season and to close in on the title races. What better place to start the nine remaining races than in Belgium. 
  Lewis Hamilton had taken a surprise pole, which with 2 minutes remaining looked as though belonged to Di Resta after a wet qualifying brought surprises and shocks. Suddenly though, the track seemed to have dried considerably and this meant that Hamilton was able to take his fourth pole in a row. 
   All 22 drivers lined up on the grid and completed the formation lap without any problems with a dry track and a mixture of soft and hard tyres chosen for the drivers. 44 laps later the race was won, and although it wasn't a classic race at Spa and didn't provide as much action as we were expecting, it was still a fairly interesting race with a few incidents to provide discussion points. 
  Sebastian Vettel yet again proved to the world this afternoon how and why he is a triple world champion. Although he is not best known for his overtaking and sometimes comes under criticism regarding it, he vitally overtook Hamilton on the first lap of the race and then dominantly controlled and eventually won the race. Once Vettel had the lead, it didn't really look like it would change from there. Essentially the race was won in the first lap, because Vettel is so good at building and managing a gap, as well as making sure he isn't within the DRS range. As a result of his victory, he has also extended his championship lead, and with only 8 races left of the season, it is going to be difficult for his rivals to close this gap. 
   After a disappointing season and revealing that they don't expect to win races this season, McLaren had a solid race today. Button had a good qualifying session yesterday relative to where McLaren currently are, starting 6th on the grid. Button got an even better start, and by the middle of the first lap was in 3rd position. Although realistically we knew he would not finish in that position, he drove a decent race to finish 6th, beating the Lotus of Romain Grosjean and the Ferrari of Felipe Massa, which indicates some improvement from the team. I'm really looking forward to seeing what package they bring to the Italian GP in two weeks time. 
  Compared to Button, Perez had a rather eventful race. After a good start, where he made up places, he tried an overtake on Grosjean on lap 8, which resulted in a drive through penalty. The stewards believed he had forced Grosjean off the road once the move was complete and this rather ruined his race because it meant that he was out of the points. He managed to get back into 10th place, but that was then claimed by Daniel Ricciardo in the closing stages of the grand prix.
  There were three retirements in total today, all for different reasons. The first of these was for Caterham driver Charles Pic, after a leak forced him to retire. Secondly Kimi Raikkonen, who is known for his consistency, retired after his brakes failed on lap 26. Even on the grid we saw his brakes smoking and throughout the first few laps we saw brake dust coming from the front of his car so it wasn't a surprise to see that eventually they failed.
  The final retirement of the afternoon was for Force India driver Paul Di Resta. He retired after suffering extreme damage to the rear of his car after Pastor Maldonado drove into the back of him. Maldonado was able to go to the pits and continue his race, but for Paul it was his afternoon over. This meant that with Button scoring more points that Sutil, McLaren had grabbed 5th in the constructors championship. 
  For me, the driver of the day was Fernando Alonso. After a bad qualifying session, by his standards and starting in 9th, he made an incredible start and found himself in fourth place in the first lap. He continued to have a good race in which he stayed out of trouble and maximised the performance of the Ferrari and picked up another podium position in 2nd. Ferrari have seemed to make some considerable progress through the summer break and this has shown here at Spa.
  One thing I love about watching the races live on TV are that they show you the top three drivers as they prepare to go onto the podium. Today we saw how Hamilton and Vettel interacted after the race and it was rather entertaining to see them soak David Coulthard with champagne on the podium during the post race interview. 

Looking forward to Italy, I think we will continue to witness the pace of the Red Bull, the strength of the Mercedes in qualifying and hopefully some more improvements from McLaren. Although today wasn't the most spectacular of races, Vettel has shown that is is moving ever closer to a fourth successive world championship.  

Belgium GP 2013: FP1 & FP2

This weekend, the world of Formula One visits one of the most iconic and oldest tracks in its history. Although it has been changed since motor racing first visited the circuit in 1925, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is still a favourite racing circuit for both drivers and fans.

  I particularly love the high speed, flowing corners of the track and it is one of my favourite tracks to watch to watch Formula One drivers attack each corner and fly down the straights. Although I've never personally been to the track, it is one which I would love to visit in the future, especially to see Eau Rouge in its full glory.

  Whilst I am watching coverage of the F1 weekend, I do not usually write posts relating to them specifically. Most of my previous posts have focused on drivers or rumours or the overall performance of a team so this weekend I thought that it was time to try something different. I've decided to write posts both regarding Free Practice 1 & 2, which took place today (Friday) and I will be writing another post on Sunday afternoon giving my race reaction. What better place than the Belgium GP to start my posts regarding a race weekend?!

  

I decided to watch the Sky Sports F1 coverage of Free Practice 1 and 2 and found immediately that there was a lot of focus on Mark Webber's replacement. As of yet Red Bull have not announced who has inherited the race seat and so even after the F1 summer break, this topic is still being constantly brought up. With no new developments in the story aside from a few rumours that Daniel Ricciardo has already signed the contract, it seems as though Sky have gone far enough with the story now. Granted, FP1 this morning was damp so there was not a lot of action on the track to discuss, but I think there should be less focus on this now. Apart from this and the annoying advertisement breaks throughout the programme, I enjoyed FP1 this morning.

  It was good to see the cars back on the track for the 90 minute session albeit with the intermediate tyres on in the damp conditions. Damp conditions unsurprisingly caught some drivers out, as they explored the limits of the race track and we saw a lot of lock ups and run offs at the bus stop chicane, from Raikkonen to Bottas to Gutierrez to Vettel. 

  Alongside these excursions, teams were also testing new development parts for their cars. Most notably, Lotus and Sauber were testing their own versions of the 'double drs' system, which when operated dumps drag and can gain up to 3 tenths of a second per lap. Lotus had already trialled this system last season, but it has yet to feature in any of the races, either last season or during this one. 

  Red Bull had also made changes to their nose cone on the car, as it is slightly flatter than previous versions of the part and Ferrari had also made changes to their brake ducts alongside Lotus. Ferrari had also been running two rear wings, one with lower downforce on Massa's car and one with higher downforce on Alonso's car.

   With around 45 minutes to go, Mark Webber was the first to put slick tyres onto his Red Bull, which was interesting to see as each driver had a dilemma. In some parts the track was dry and therefore needed the slick tyres, however around the pit lane the track was still clearly too damp for the slick tyres. In the dry section of the track, sector 2, Webber set a time of 50.8 seconds with 40 minutes to go, which was 4 seconds off Jenson Button's 46.6 he set in the same sector during qualifying in 2012 which gave him his first pole position for McLaren. 

  At 24 minutes to go, Alonso and Perez were swapping the quickest times at the top of the board, after most runners had also put on a set of slick tyres. Compared to a 2:00.500 set by Button at the beginning of the session, Perez' 1:55.518 illustrated that the track was drying out and drivers were finding their confidence. 

  However, with around 19 minutes left of the session, the rain started to fall again and so it was hard for drivers to get in any quicker times. At the end of the session the top ten looked like this:

1. Alonso 1:55.198
2. Di Resta +0.026
3. Sutil +0.175

4. Perez

5. Rosberg

6. Vettel

7. Gutierrez

8. Hulkenberg

9. Ricciardo

10. Bottas

With the damp conditions and limited running during FP1 it is impossible to know if this data is representative of what the cars are actually capable of. It will depend on the weather during qualifying and the race, and at this early part of the weekend I wouldn't look too much into the times. 

FP2 gave us totally different weather conditions. Instead of a damp track and the threat of rain, it was sunny and dry at the circuit and this meant that the teams and drivers were able to complete more running. This weekend the tyres available are the hard and medium compounds, and we saw both of these being run during the session. 

   There was a busy start to the session, with most cars getting out on track to make up for the limited running in the first session and with this we also saw some more development parts on the cars.

  McLaren were running a new rear wing n plate on their car, Mercedes had a new rear wing and Lotus had taken off their 'double drs' system, which they ran earlier in FP1. 

  With 30 minutes gone of the session, Webber had set the fastest time of 1:49.390, considerably faster than in FP1. Red Bull were looking competitive during the session, and finished with Vettel topping the session with a 1:49.331 and Mark Webber close behind. The only downside of the session as far as they were concerned was that Vettel suffered from a right rear puncture near the end of the session, which signalled the end of his session. 

  Caterham driver Van Der Garde suffered from a setback at the end of the session after crashing into the barriers after turn 14 after losing the rear of the car which brought out yellow flags and the end of his session.

The top ten at the end of FP2 were:

1. Vettel

2. Webber

3. Grosjean

4. Massa

5. Vergne

6. Raikkonen

7. Alonso

8. Perez

9. Rosberg

10. Di Resta

With the Friday sessions now over, the drivers have one session left tomorrow before qualifying. As usual the Red Bulls seem competitive, in both racing and qualifying pace. Lewis Hamilton has had a few set up issues and has not been entirely happy within the car, but it would be foolish to write him off for pole position just yet. He always seems to get it right for Saturday. 

I still think it is too early to see the improvements that Ferrari and McLaren have been trying to make and we will get a better idea of that tomorrow perhaps after FP3. My prediction however as it stands now is that it will be Red Bull and Mercedes going head to head for pole position.

Predictions:

Pole: Hamilton

Win: Hamilton 

F1 Team Review 2013: McLaren

At the beginning of the 2013 F1 season, we were all expecting to see the big teams fighting it out for both the World Driver's Championship and the World Constructor's Championship. These teams included reigning champions Red Bull and previous constructor champions Ferrari and McLaren, the two oldest outfits in the Formula One world. 

   However, with 10 races now gone and with nine remaining there have been some unexpected teams in the title hunt as well as teams under performing, which as surprised spectators and reporters alike. With Lotus winning the first race of the season and consistently performing well, it has left them fourth in the championship, only 11 points behind Ferrari.
   Ferrari have had a similar season to one in which they had last. They've picked up race wins and podiums, had a less competitive car than some of their rivals, yet still find themselves third in the championship. Considering the fact that Felipe Massa has experienced some trouble in the last few races, to see them still third in the standings illustrates the impact the Spaniard Alonso has on the team. 

  One team which even by their standards has fallen way below expectation is McLaren. Since Lewis Hamilton's departure from the Woking based team they have failed to pick up a podium finish, let alone a race win. Admittedly, this may not be because Hamilton has left the team, it has more to do with the fact that they have not produced a competitive car this season. 
  As a McLaren fan myself, it is very difficult to criticise the performance of the team because obviously I want them to be winning races and challenging for the titles. However, it has been hard being a McLaren fan because we've witnessed them challenging for fifth place in the standings whereas this time last year they were challenging Red Bull and Ferrari for 2nd or 1st. So far this season, with 10 races done and dusted McLaren have scored 57 points, which is 6th in the standings. Compare this with last season, McLaren had already scored 55 points after the first two races of the season, and after ten races their total stood at 189 points. 
  It was claimed that McLaren had over-performed last season, but I do not believe this for one moment. How can a team which has won WCC's and WDC's in the past think that a 3rd place finish for the 2012 season is an  over achievement? McLaren arguably had one of the fastest cars last season yet still suffered with technical and reliability problems so I don't believe they could claim to have 'over-achieved.' They were expected to be challenging and I don't believe this to be the right attitude for the team to have. Yes, it's true they don't have a competitive enough car this year and they took a big risk in changing the way the suspension works and other aspects of the car, but they have the resources and experience which should have allowed them to close the gap quicker than they have done. In some races they are over 1 second off the pace of the front-runners and this is a massive amount of time to be losing. 
  McLaren's best finish this season has been 5th place, and this isn't something us fans should be excited about. The rocket red race victory shirts should be on, and we should be celebrating perhaps Sergio Perez' first race win or Jenson Button's overtaking at a particular race, which brings him the race win. 
  The optimism and positivity seems to have gone from the outfit as well, as I've recently heard that they do not think they can win a race this season. Is this realistic? Perhaps, but it is still important to have some belief and as a fan it is disheartening to hear this. I really hope that this is just a dip in performance this season and McLaren are able to get back to winning ways in 2014 because it doesn't seem right to see them outside the podium positions. It's hard to watch races that the team have previously been successful at, such as in Hungary and with the Belgium GP this weekend, it will be tough again to potentially see a different team win a race that Jenson Button and McLaren brilliantly won last year.
  This season for McLaren can hardly be called a success, but securing at least 5th in the constructor's will be vital for the team, considering the millions of pounds difference you receive between each place. The championships may be over for McLaren now, but I still believe they should be working towards at least one win this season, even if it is just for all the loyal fans who have stuck by them this season.