Hamilton penalty defeats point of F1 Sprint – Belgian GP diary

Verstappen: “Yeah I don’t give a f*** if I’m through in P10! It’s just s*** execution.”

Lambiase: “OK, and then when the track was two seconds quicker for your final lap and you didn’t have any energy left, how would that have gone down? But you tell me what you want to do in Q3, and we’ll do it. Let me know. Sets, fuel, run plan…”

It led to an apology from Verstappen after taking pole, but the digs from his engineer appeared to continue as the race unfolded.

“You used a lot of tyre on the out lap, Max. Not sure that was sensible,” was one message.

“This tyre had reasonable degradation in the first stint. I’d ask you to use your head a bit more,” was another.

Given the fact Verstappen was cruising to his eighth victory in a row (or tenth if you count the two Sprints in that run) and comfortably clear of the field, it was an odd time for things to be getting heated. In fact, it felt like perhaps half of it was just the pair keeping themselves entertained.

Even if Verstappen is described as “a very demanding customer”, don’t expect a breakdown in the relationship anytime soon.

 

Stewards hurt the Sprint

As good a story as it was for Oscar Piastri to lead a lap and finish second, and Pierre Gasly to secure a top three for Alpine, the big talking point after the sprint on Saturday revolved around Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez.

Hamilton’s attempt to overtake on the inside of Paul Frere – having got a run out of Stavelot – was understandably defended hard by Perez, but with the Mercedes on his inside and fully alongside, in those conditions there needed to be collaboration from both sides.

As Hamilton understeered after getting on the inside kerb, Perez was still trying to squeeze the Mercedes after the apex. Nothing wrong with that, it was hard racing, but the outcome of light contact between the two surely was as a result of how both were battling. And that should be encouraged not punished.

The sprint rules were changed specifically to try and increase the likelihood of racing by removing the risk of an issue ruining a driver’s Sunday grid position, as it’s now a standalone event. And yet despite having made such a big move in terms of the format of the event, the stewards penalised the one bit of hard racing that stood out.

Hamilton’s understated reaction shouldn’t be mistaken for acceptance that he was at fault, but more an indifference to the Sprint itself, and that will only have been amplified when he’s made an example of that other drivers will also be following. The precedent set is for any contact to be punished, and even a five-second time penalty is more likely to have an impact in a short Sprint race when gaps are smaller.

As Jenson Button succinctly put it on social media at the time: “Lewis penalty is totally wrong”. But for more than just its impact on Saturday’s result.

The changing face of Alpine

On Friday morning, word came through of Pat Fry’s impending move to Williams being announced, but also that it might not be the only change at Alpine.

A quick visit to the team showed it was in crisis comms mode, and something was afoot. But after issuing denials, it insists no changes were confirmed until the hour before the announcement of Otmar Szafnauer and Alan Permane’s departures was released.

It hadn’t been the original intention, and clearly wasn’t ideal to have two such senior personnel running the team knowing they would leave after the weekend. But all involved did an impressive job from that point on to secure a top-three result with Pierre Gasly in the Sprint and a strong recovery to eighth for Esteban Ocon on Sunday.

In many ways, those results just add to the overall confusion at the team. Changes being made unexpectedly, with no clear plan in place for what is to come next, and a race team that retains the ability to deliver excellent performances – even if they haven’t been consistently forthcoming this season so far.

Friday was a microcosm of the overall situation, with Alpine crying out for someone to take hold of it and give it a clear direction.

 

Spa tries its best to deliver

As I wrote ahead of the race weekend, the safety of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit was called into question earlier this month by some drivers and it meant it was a significant topic leading into the weekend.

The problem is in the fact that the things that make Spa such an amazing challenge are also the same things that can cause major issues. Not only the track layout but the weather conditions often mix up races by making it so tough for the drivers, and this weekend it tried its best on that front.

There was a sense of division between the drivers on Thursday as some explained their belief that the iconic Belgian circuit was far from the most dangerous on the calendar and pointed to the likes of Monaco and Jeddah as venues that carry a higher level of risk. But then the likes of Charles Leclerc and Zhou Guanyu stated changes still needed to be made to Eau Rouge.

On Friday and Saturday, the scene was set for the track to be at its best or its worst. Heavy rain, spray and competitive sessions combined but passed without major incident, and it was actually Sunday morning that saw the most incidents as junior category drivers kept crashing on the way to the pits ahead of their races.

But credit where it’s due: Oliver Goethe’s crash in the F3 race – losing control through a wet Eau Rouge on slick tyres – showed the improvements of the run-off area at that part of the track. Goethe was able to climb out quickly with his car stopped in the Techpro that was never going to allow it to bounce back onto the track.

For all the times that F3 and F2 cars went through there in low grip conditions, Goethe’s was the only crash. Max Verstappen’s twitch in the race the biggest moment for an F1 car in the race, even with the mid-race shower. Sadly the conditions still didn’t make for a classic, but they didn’t make for notable danger, either.