Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton came to Spa 1-2 in the World Championship, and although Hamilton superbly won the race, and regained the points lead, Webber wasn’t too upset, for he finished second – and none of the three other title contenders scored at all.
It was a typically capricious Grand Prix at this greatest of all contemporary circuits, and – as is often the case at Spa – the weather had a hand in it. Fundamentally the afternoon was dry, which was a surprise after the practice and qualifying days, but a couple of brief showers caused many an incident. “On a day like this,” Hamilton said, “the race can be a lottery, so it’s always good to come out of it well.”
He was right. Accidents accounted for Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso, while Sebastian Vettel trailed in 15th after yet another chaotic afternoon. Is Vettel quick enough to be World Champion? Absolutely. Is he mature enough? Absolutely not.
Given that straightline speed is not their strongest suit, the Renault-powered Red Bulls were expected – relatively – to struggle to Spa, but if Webber and Vettel were vulnerable on the long climb from Eau Rouge to Les Combes, their cars’ astonishing superiority through fast corners – and Spa, as we know, is essentially all fast corners – guaranteed that over the lap they were right there. Vettel, rather surprisingly, qualified only fourth, but Webber was able to beat Hamilton to pole position.
At the start, though, Mark’s car hesitated. “There was a small problem with the clutch on the formation lap,” he said. “We tried to make an adjustment to it, and hoped that would cure the problem, but it didn’t…”
Before the first corner, La Source, Webber was therefore engulfed, and at the end of the opening lap he was back in sixth place, behind Hamilton, Kubica, Vettel, Massa and Button.
By the end of the lap, a little rain had come down, and at the ‘Bus Stop’ chicane the first few cars all ran wide, but survived; behind them, though, Alonso and Barrichello had a coming-together, and while Fernando headed straight for the pits, to get a new nose, Rubens – on the occasion of his 300th Grand Prix – was out on the spot.
“I was closing the door on Rosberg,” he said, “but although I braked quite early, it wasn’t sufficient to stop the car, and I went straight into Alonso, for which I’m sorry…”
Fernando, already the long shot in the five-man fight for the championship, had a bad weekend in Belgium. After being fastest in both the Friday practice sessions, he qualified a disappointing 10th, made his early pit stop for repairs, spent the afternoon climbing back into the points, then – in a heavy rain shower – spun into the barrier, bringing out the safety car for the second time. It had been out first, for just one lap, after the original incident with Barrichello.
Even though conditions were uncertain – imminent rain was rumoured every five minutes or so – and even though he was the leader, and therefore going to find a suddenly slippery corner before those chasing him – still there was something quite inexorable about Hamilton’s victory at Spa. Before the race started Button remarked that the McLaren seemed to have a surprising amount of grip – on slicks – when the track was a little damp, and his team mate’s final qualifying lap seemed to bear that out. With spots of rain coming down at various points on the circuit, Lewis put in a stupefying lap – streets quicker than anyone else at the time – to join Webber on the front row. That being so, it wasn’t a surprise to see his faultless display the following day.
Almost faultless, anyway. On lap 33 a proper shower of rain (the one that accounted for Alonso) began, but for the first four – Hamilton, Kubica, Webber, Massa – it wasn’t yet coming down as they completed the lap, so off they set on another, while everyone else, some way behind, dashed in to change either to intermediate tyres or, in some cases, ‘full wets’. Still out there on slicks, Hamilton skated off…
“I was,” he said, “extremely lucky. It was incredibly slippery, and I was really tiptoeing, but the thing just didn’t want to stop – I just barely skimmed a barrier, but thankfully didn’t do any damage.”
When the top four made their stops, a lap later than the rest, Webber succeeded finally in getting ahead of Kubica, and into second place. Robert, having driven beautifully in the Renault (which ran with an F-duct for the first time, and gained significant straightline speed), stopped askew in his pit box, which necessarily delayed his mechanics.
“My fault,” he said. “The conditions were changing, and I needed to make various changes on the steering-wheel – I couldn’t do it on the track, because it was so treacherous, so I had to do it in the pit lane, got distracted, locked up, and didn’t stop in the right place…”
Over the last four laps, following the safety car period for Alonso’s accident, Hamilton concentrated on maintaining a safe gap, and this he was able to do without problem, taking the flag a second and a half to the good, with Kubica third, and Massa – Ferrari’s main man this weekend – fourth.
Force India, with their immense straightline speed, always show well at Spa – remember Giancarlo Fisichella’s second place in 2009 – and Adrian Sutil did a fine job to claim fifth place, ahead of the still disappointing Mercedes of Rosberg and Schumacher. Both the Mercs started way back on the grid, mind you, Nico losing five grid places after needing a gearbox change on Saturday, and Michael losing 10 for his lunatic driving (against Barrichello) at the last race, in Hungary.
So what of Vettel and Button, the two other championship contenders? Well, the one accounted for the other. In the early laps of the race, Jenson and Sebastian ran second and third, behind Hamilton, but on lap 16, on the approach to the ‘Bus Stop’, the Red Bull braked too late, and slammed into the McLaren. Button retired immediately, while Vettel headed for the pits to get a new nose.
“Not,” remarked Martin Whitmarsh, “what you’d expect to see in Formula 1 – more like the junior formulae… A ‘drive through’ seemed a pretty light punishment to me.”
And to many others. Vettel’s Belgian Grand Prix was no less chaotic than many of his races have been this year. Later in the afternoon, he had a coming-together with Liuzzi, which shattered the Force India’s nose, and punctured the Red Bull’s left rear tyre. Vettel really does need to sit down and have a talk with himself: he has had bad luck this season, yes, but many a good result he has tossed away.
At the press conference Hamilton and Webber talked about the balance of the season. With six races to go, both are now quite significantly clear of their team mates in the World Championship: were we getting to the point that McLaren and Red Bull – like Ferrari, with Alonso – would begin to put more ‘emphasis’ on one driver? One cannot, of course, use a phrase like ‘team orders’, because they’re banned, as we all know…
Hamilton said that, in the case of McLaren, he didn’t think so. “Jenson was very unfortunate today – he’d done a fantastic job to get from fifth to second. I get the same treatment as Jenson, and that enables us both to score the maximum points we can. I don’t feel there should be any preferential treatment – the team do the best they can possibly do for each of us. There’s no more they can do…”
Webber was more enigmatic. “McLaren,” he said, “have won many championships, and they have a very good trophy cabinet. Red Bull have a good trophy cabinet, too – but not one like McLaren’s, so… it depends on how hungry we are to try and do that. I think it’s too early at the moment, but not far away. Having said that, maybe there’s a different strategy, compared with McLaren, I’m not sure…”
Given the way Vettel is clowning around at the moment, Red Bull people must surely – however, in some cases, reluctantly – accept that their most likely 2010 World Champion is 34, not 23, and from Australia, not Germany. Sebastian may be sublimely talented, but, as Jackie Stewart would say, his ‘mind management’ is all over the place, and that’s not how titles are won.
Maybe Mark Webber has a reason to be enigmatic? After all, we’re into “Silly season” now and as far as I know the 2011 Red Bull line-up is yet to be revealed.
So perhaps there is some truth to the rumour that the RB-squad already has Kimi Räikkönen waiting in the wings……
Orjan… Where have you been hiding?
Weber re-signed for Red Bull back in June.
http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,27238294-5018892,00.html
Ferrari are set for 2011. McLaren are set for 2011.
Mercedes are set .
Kimi wont come back..
Obviously Red Bull want ” Wonder Kid “to win, but, his performances show a distinct lack of maturity and judgement. He should be back in Formula Ford.
Totally agree with everything Nigel says about Vettel’s mental fragility.
I wonder what the consequence, for him, should be of wasting the best car for two seasons running??
Although age is on his side, and probably the reason why team owners will give him the benefit of the doubt, he may never get another chance to win a championship.
While recognising the difference in outright pace, the name Andre de Cesaris comes to mind when I see Vettel’s regular brain fades
I think people pick on Vettel way too much… he has had horrible luck this year. I still say the wreck at Turkey was a racign incident…. Yesterday Button had 4 guys behind him nose to tail he was going so slow and Vettel simply slid when Button braked early…. yes, it was his fault in the end, but no drive through was nessasary
Webber on the other hand is the luckiest driver ont eh grid… His start was a joke and he gets back to 2nd with all the errors aroudn him…. he wins in Hungary do to a penalty to Vettel I have never seen called in all my years of watching F1
The rule on the distance betwen cars during a SF period is a new one, introduced when the SF became necessary, and maybe even after several SF deployments. Webber was let down by a malfunction of his car at the start – it wasn’t necessarily the man who ‘fluffed’ it. Vettel is showing signs of being 23 – no surprise there! He’ll be good once he gains more experience. It is one thing to win a race here and there, but another thing entirely to become a true championship contender. Lewis is extraordinary in this respect, but even he had to lose a title before he could win one.
So far as I can recall, the rule about a distance between cars during a Safetycar period is due to Hamilton causing mayhem behind a Safetycar at Fuji in 2007.
Great drive by Hamilton – showing that he is developing as a class act out of the car just as much as in it. Not many drivers will admit to good fortune when it comes to retrieving an “off”.
As for Vettel, its not that he makes mistakes, all drivers do from time to time. Its that he makes the same mistakes over and over again. As soon as you see him back in the pack, particularly in a situation where he is facing the “injustice” of being somewhere behind Webber, you just know that the Safety Car is being warmed up and moved to the end of the pitlane in readiness. Still at least no tantrums and, indeed, an apology this time. Top marks for that at least.
As for Webber being “lucky” – yes he is. Its amazing how lucky you can be when you supplement speed with brains.
I would just say that one of the first things you learn at Skip Barber, is “when you spin, go all in”, which means once you’ve lost it, LOCK UP THE BRAKES! (and push in the clutch to keep it from staling). If you don’t lock up, you go swooping and careening uncontrollably all over the track. If you replay the incident several times, you will notice that Vettel did not lock up and swooped and careened right into Button. But, he had about a second (a very long time when you’re spinning) to realize he was cooked, and lock ‘em up. His foot was already on the brake.
Had he simply done what they teach you the first day in racing school, he would have spun harmlessly into the asphalt run off area, missing Button altogether. The reason this incident “looked strange” is because F1 drivers don’t make this sub-rookie mistake.
Besides Button was defending the “out-braking-zone”, by staying to the inside. The only hope of a pass was on the OUTSIDE, and beat him to the second apex. Besides he had just caught Button, so when Button defended, Vettel should have just said to himself: “Crap! OK, I’ll just get him going into La Source”.
Compare Vettel’s performance this year to Button’s last year. After eons struggling in mid-field or at the back, Button finally found himself in good car. Without the slightest hesitation he grabbed the opportunity by the throat. He piled up win after win, so when his car had been eclipsed by superior ones, the quietly kept piling up points to remain on top at the end. The true measure of Button’s season was Barrichello’s inability to seize the day, coming in third.
This year Vettel finds himself in a superior car, yet instead of seizing anything, he’s seizing up. As for Bad luck, he had two early mechanical DNFs, but Hamilton has had two as well. They say you make your own luck, and Vettel’s bad luck is mostly of his own making.
Webber on the other hand, is putting in a season not too dissimilar to Button’s. I certainly hope if Red Bull win the WDC, its Webber and not Vettel.
I am a fan of Vettel, but I’m never a fan of a immature kid who’s been given the opportunity of a lifetime, and botches it. However, he is so talented, I’m sure he’ll get over these youthful transgressions and become champion, just not this year.
All this does make you wonder if they shouldn’t let these kids rack up a little more experience in the lower formulae, before coming to F1.
Tut tut NIgel. Age doesnt help your memory, does it?
Wasnt it you that said it was a matter of time before Juan Pablo Montoya would win a championship? Wasnt it you who defended all those brain malfunctions of dear Juan?
Or should we point to goofmaster Lewis Hamilton in 2007, 2008?
Vettel might not be ripe yet, but he is the most promising driver on the grid right now, and will win many, many championship.
Hmmmm,having just got my sweaty, trembling hands on the August edition of Motorsport (it travels to the Antipodes by boat, costs $11.95, the more current “par avion”
costs $18.95, and,despite being far superior to any of the toilet paper masquerading as “motor racing publications” in Oz, I’m nnot prepared to pay that much for what is, basically, an indulgence)I would concur with Nigel’s comments on Seb wholeheartedly. In fact, after Spa, they seemed all the more relevant and accurate.”Vettulant” seems to be a delightful descriptive, and, far more charitable than “proctologist”.
He does seem to have a sense of “entitlement”- it is evident in his behaviour when he succeeds, the raised finger, it is evident also, when he has a brain explosion in traffic, not the least by the deleting of Seb’s replies on pit-car radio transmissions (as happens, I believe, when obscenities are uttered), and, by the “high risk” (read this as a synomym for “stupid” if you like) nature of his overtaking attempts when he isn’t leading.
It would seem that the “messianic” treatment he gets from his team, and, most notably, Dr Marko, is
not helpful in the process of turning an extremely fast driver into an extremely fast driver with good racecraft. Perhaps a bit of dragging Seb out for a “chat behind the woodshed” to remind him that, (to quote Monty Python) “‘e’s not the messiah, ‘e’s just a very naighty boy”, may do more good than trying to put spin on actions that are obviously poorly judged, both in their execution, and, evidently, in his inabilty to be patient and smart.
I think that Seb definitely has the potential to be one of the greats, but it remains to be seen whether he has the aspects of character which will carry him to that level.
There are lots and lots of very fast young drivers, they don’t all fulfill their potential, and, Seb seems to be stuck in a bit of a dysfunctional pattern.
Finally, all praise to Lewis, on a superb effort, and to McLarn.
Cheers
Regardless of what you think about Vettel, Hamiton et al, wasn’t it fantastic to see racing back at Spa?
A spot of rain and a phenomenal track makes all the difference. The track is just steeped in character and history. It just makes me realise how tragically futile the pursuit of entertainment via technical trickery is (adjustable rear wings only when within 1 second of the car in front). Why not focus on the tracks and allow the teams a bit of technical freedom to experiment and develop new ideas of their own accord?
I have been looking at in car footage of Vettel this season and in both of the major crashes the front wing seems to wobble from side to side in a see saw motion, noticeably more in Spa but also in Turkey. I compared this with in car of Vettel on quick laps everywhere else, lots of pole positions and the wing was dead level, it looks like that car is VERY sensitive to turbulence. It might be that Red Bull don’t mind Seb getting a bad press as it diverts attention from something more important.
i guess following on from the above comment, does it just reinforce what a great circuit Spa is, and how dreadful so many others are? maybe herr tilke might do better than to study the ‘defunct’ GP circuits of yesteryear [ie zandvoort/ rouen] and transpose them to a new venue, after all thus far his choices haven’t exactly matched these glorious circuits-
interesting viewpoint on seb, he is a really quick driver and in the next few years he may become a really great one, but i cannot recollect in recent years so much talent bursting through, the likes of the nico’s, robert, lewis to mention 4 and although i suspect the difference between lewis and seb is that lewis has learnt a great deal from jens and seb hasn’t from mark and he needs to -
Spa USED to be a great track, the endless grey run off areas and the fencing have turned it into a rather uninspiring place to spectate at. Le Raidillon used to be a truly awesome section to watch from, no matter what type of car was on track. Now, since it’s castration, it is just another curve or two. I just wish the circuit owners would actually consider spectators a bit more. As for the facilities at Spa, I’m glad I’m not female. Given the glowing reports that Spa gets in the press, I wonder if any of the paddock and press room bound ‘journalists’ have actually spent time walking fully around the track from the spectator areas.Also, another thing whilst I’m ranting : that abominable FIA fence around the whole of the Nordschleife has made spectating there almost impossible. Oh! for the ‘old days’ where you didn’t have to stare through a fence. You should see the state of the ‘Ring at the moment, it makes me want to weep!
After his debut year Alonso sat out his first year at Renault working as a Test Driver. The test ban means that route to a race seat is denied to new F1 Drivers. Did Alonso benefit from over a thousand Kms as a Test Driver for Renault? Would Vettel have benefited from a year in an F1 car as a test driver?
The test ban also hinders the new F1 teams.
The chops on other drivers away from the grid don’t help Vettel’s reputation do they? I’m not sure trying to excuse lapses like the one we saw at Spa work given the aggressive swerves from the grid that have also cost him places this year.
Some pundits and drivers are pointing at Vettel’s inability to overtake and a lack of race craft. I’m the only person wondering what Bourdais would be able to achieve in that RBR? Bourdais had racecraft and experience but lacked pace?
One possible positive from Vettel’s shunt on Sunday is that Christian Horner may now have even more control over his team? Will Horner’s chances of being headhunted by Ferrari be reduced that much if Hamilton wins his second world championship this year?
Hopefully Button will remain positive about his championship chances this year. Who knows who Vettel may take out in the remaining six races.
I think the biggest reason for all the fences is the fact that there are too many attorneys in the world today, all anxious to capitalize on the most frivilous of lawsuits.
What has happened to Alonso this year? More mistakes this year than his last 5 combined. His only two wins were gifts(Vettel’s car dying and the less said about Germany the better).
Ferrari should have played things out with Kimi one more year. By rushing things they have crushed Mass’s spirit by making him a #2, Alonso is trying so hard he is making a mess of things and the team is under insane pressure not likely to be as high without all the change this year with Alonso ruling court.
Not much has been mentioned of Schumacher.
In terms of places made up from qualifying to race result this was his best effort of the year.
Which isn’t saying much!
So Vettel is now starting to share it out a bit.
At Fuji 2007 he took out Webber and he got him again at Turkey this year. At Spa it was Button’s turn. No doubt he will manage to hit Alonso and Hamilton next.
Vettel has that annoying habit of thrusting his forefinger at the camera when he does well. Perhaps touching his thumb to his forefinger would be a better measure of his performance.
At least Jenson didn’t give vent to his feelings with his middle finger
Be careful Douglas…. I seem to remember a 23 year old Hamilton hitting Kimi in the pits, running he and Kimi off road at Fuji when Kimi beat him to the first corner. Hamilton used to have big problems with the Red Mist, but has overcome them…..
Mark Ryan, do yourself a favour and subscribe to Motor Sport you’ll get it faster than the $18.95 version and for cheaper than $11.95 per issue also.. Take advantage of the strong Ozzie Dollar at the moment. You won’t regret it. Great report, Nigel and yes I think young Vettel must be kicking himself about all the wrong moves he has made since Turkey.
No, Michael S, Hamilton did not run Raikkonen off the road at Fuji, the replays proved that. It was team mate Kovalainen that was the unpunished guilty party.
Stii, we wouldn’t want the facts to get in the way of your opinions, would we?
Ignore the ferrari acolytes Nigel, they infest and pollute every motorsport forum eventually.
Pete H. At last someone who has the same point of view as me about Fuji. Frankly, most of the field were struggling to make the corner that time!
And your comment vis-a-vis Schumacher M. Didn’t his result prove what an absurdly lenient penalty a 10 place grid drop for the appalling move on Barrichello. in Hungary was? If he’d started 10th I suspect he’d have finished in much the same position.
I’ll just stick my twopenneth in for Jenson too. I thought he was driving beautifully in a damaged car, positioned his car very well in the one place he knew he was vulnerable, and did not brake early for the chicane when he was taken out. He was unlikley to finish 2nd as his stop would have taken much longer than those behind him, but useful points could have been gained.
It will be very ironic if McLaren do eventually win the drivers title by putting their weight behind Lewis and defeating Red Bull because a Red Bull took out the other McLaren in Spa.
That´s the F1 we have…a drive trough due to a normal racing acident in a atempt to pass.
Ok.
Hitler once said that it takes one generation (20/25 years) to change the people mentality. He was correct.
Stange to see a publication directed by tha nº 2 fan of Gilles Villeneuve (nº 1 it´s me) defending this penalisation. New times-
Rgds