It has been far too long since the season has been active - a five week summer break is rather longer than it has been before, starting to get withdrawal symptoms from it all. On the plus side it did leave space to take in the entire of the Olympic games here on our little island, where the blog attended 50% of all events taking place up here in the North which amounted to 5 football matches including a quarter final. The Olympics also offers that unique chance to see a whole array of sports without being able to understand what on earth is going on - Water Polo for example just seems to be a series of interlinked fouls and infringements. Throughout the games it is safe to say I saw more diving and volleyball than is considered natural, and for some reason managed to miss most of the badminton which I saw most of in 2008. However this being England we did manage to mess a fair amount of things up, from an array of dodgy adjudications in cycling and boxing, and technical failures costing a Korean a medal in fencing. But to top the list of blunders was the organising committee forgetting which flag represents North Korea... genius, replacing it with the one of their mortal enemies, South Korea. However those are all finished now and the second phase of the games enters its opening day today, where people with missing limbs and other disabilities prove they are still much better at sport than I am.
Anyway enough about that, F1 is back from it's holiday finally, meaning I had to dust of this account and fight another battle with Windows Movie Maker to get the video out last night after the final rehearsal (add cinematic suspense tune here). Not that any of that matters because the season is welcomed back by the greatest track on the calendar, 4.4miles of awesome, twisting through the forests of the Ardennes and bathed an a typically unpredictable wet micro-climate. Because it is time for one of the races we have all been waiting for since the beginning of the season, well when I say 'we' it is just me here in the corner that is blog HQ. Yes indeed this is the preview post for the epic Belgian GP, which sadly could be the last for a while if the plans to alternate the weekend with France come through. Such plans are not met with approval here, at all...
The Track
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| credit to the FIA for the circuit map |
From the start of the lap the track opens with a sharp hairpin at La Source, one of the few surviving relics from the unrelentingly fast and dangerous former lap before the update in 1980. Descending on the exit onto the GT pit straight which plummets steeply before reaching the compression at the bottom of the hill. Upon that hill lies one of the most recognisable corners in all of motor sport, up there with the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca, 130R at Suzuka and the Beckett's sequence at Silverstone. For this is the start of the epic Eau Rouge corner, whoever decided to place a massively high speed corner on the side of a very steep hill is a genius. Cresting the brow at Radillon the track continues at speed down the Kemmel straight floating at the highest point on the track.
This leads into the flowing middle sector, through Les Combes, into Malmady and Rivage before descending once more into another major land mark corner, this is Pouhon. Since the cars have developed to the point where Eau Rouge is a flat out kink, it is up to Pouhon to test the grip and speed of the machines. Not quite full throttle, even less so in the likes of an HRT or Marussia towards the back. Falling to yet further the track curves through Fagnes and down to the lowest point on the lap the double corner at Stavelot.
The final sector is all about power, climbing gently towards the start line, passing through what is regarded as the fastest corner in all of formula one, Blanchimont meeting the apex at speeds rather close to 200mph. I can suppose adding some run-off there is an acceptable safety measure, although it didn't stop a Ferrari 458 rolling after hitting the wall in the 24hr race. In practice and qualifying last season cars were going through Blanchimont with the DRS open, which is madness, but does demonstrate how much grip the cars do have.
Before the end there is the small matter of the Bus-stop chicane, which over the years has seen lots of changes in accordance with updates to the pit lane facilities and that section of the track in general. The problem is though, that each of the changes has made the sequence progressively worse, the only place modern designers have been allowed to change and they've made a complete mess of it. The 2003 version was tolerable but this current configuration is an abomination, here we have one of the greatest laps in the world and someone plonks this daft clumsy chicane on the end of it... shame..
However before I end up ranting any more than necessary, time to unveil the video for the Belgian GP, filmed in traditional virtual wet conditions because it was a lot of fun sliding around. This is the track introduction for Spa 2012.
What to expect
Well it has been a considerable amount of time since the last race back in Hungary so there have been plenty of opportunities for the teams to take a look at their cars and figure out what needs to be fixed and improved for the second half of the season. As a result picking a winner or even anyone in the top five is immensely difficult, because every now and then a mid-field team springs up and goes really quickly. We had Sauber in Malaysia and Canada scoring podiums and of course the 2012 lunatic Maldonado taking a win for Williams all those races ago in Spain. But with all this unpredictability floating around there is another layer specific to the Belgian GP, and that is the infamous weather. It does rain a lot at Spa, and because of the length of the track it can rain in different parts of it, in 2008 it was only wet from Fagnes to La Source and dry everywhere else. A wetter race would help the mid field teams, especially Sauber, whereas a hot dry weekend would help Lotus and Spa specialist Kimi Raikkonen famous for driving at full speed through a cloud of smoke at the top of Eau Rouge.
What we can do is make assumptions and some rather dodgy guesswork and say that the high speed nature of the track could help McLaren and Mercedes with the stronger engines and Ferrari, but hurt Red Bull at the front. This leaves an interesting question as to how Lotus will perform in their temperature sensitive car that can also go well in the rain, but will be defeated by cold overcast skies which are probably likely. The track will play more towards Raikkonen, and the last time Grosjean was here in F1, he binned Hamilton at Le Combes on the first lap, so not the greatest of all records.
Down in the mid-field, well here things also get a lot interesting because any developments could bridge the small gap between them and the top teams in front without needing a mad race. Force India went through a year of specialising in high speed tracks, scoring pole at Spa with Fisichella in 2009 so a return to that form could be promising. Williams and Sauber can be just as competitive as previous race this season have shown - add some upgrades and changeable weather and the top ten could become very tight indeed. Except for Torro Rosso, they might be off the back a little, although the Ferrari engine could compensate for the lower raw pace to join other teams.
As for the final rows of the grid things will probably be a lot less competitive, as Caterham have the lead of the division all to themselves, and a longer track will likely exacerbate the difference. Dropping them further behind Torro Rosso and moving away from Marussia and HRT at the very back of the field. Hopefully some summer updates can reverse the trend that is developing as Torro Rosso figure things out and pull away, to close the gap but they might not be so evident on a track as demanding as Spa. Here corners like Pouhon demonstrate the difference between a top car and the bottom teams and widen the void of performance.
Blog Predictions
It has been a while since I tried scoring points here and on the basis of other events this season the effort is not going to be that successful. But I invented this section and it shall be continued through to the end of the year. On that note here are the answers for the Belgian GP.
- Raikkonen
- Hamilton
- Vettel
- Alonso
- Webber
- Button
- Rosberg
- Di Resta
- Kobayashi
- Grosjean
Qualifying results
- Red Bull - Vettel
- McLaren - Hamilton
- Ferrari - Alonso
- Mercedes - Schumacher
- Lotus - Raikkonen
- Sauber - Kobayashi
- Williams - Maldonado
- Force India - Di Resta
- Torro Rosso - Ricciardo
- Caterham - Kovalainen
- Marussia - Glock
- HRT - De La Rosa
Well that is everything covered now, as we sit and wait for the first wheels to spin up for the first practice session since the elongated summer break, which seemed odd considering there are more races this season than last. But instead the schedule runs all the way to the end of November this time to compensate. It has been too long since the Hungarian GP and the blog welcomes the season back, and of all the venues to come back to, there are none better than the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa Francorchamps. Unless of course we were to race at the Nordschleife once more or have a race at Mt Panorama, but even then Spa would be towards the top of the list. So until Saturday this is farewell from the return post from the blog.
