2007 Formula One Belgian Grand Prix

[Jack_Bauer]

After a year's hiatus for redevelopment work the Formula One circus returns to the legendary Spa-Francorchamps track in the Eiffel Mountains of Belgium. Sadly the return to this glorious circuit has been overshadowed by the fallout from the McLaren/Ferrari 'spying' scandal, but hopefully the off-track hostilities can be put to one side so the on-track battle can resume. So far this weekend it has looked a four horse race between the McLaren and Ferrari drivers, the two top teams looking very close on pace with few others looking able to challenge.

Practice 1

01 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:47.339 16 laps
02 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:47.881 19 laps
03 F. Alonso McLaren 1:47.994 17 laps
04 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:48.052 20 laps
05 N. Rosberg Williams 1:48.372 18 laps
06 R. Kubica BMW 1:48.605 20 laps
07 A. Wurz Williams 1:48.920 20 laps
08 J. Trulli Toyota 1:48.994 19 laps
09 H. Kovalainen Renault 1:49.138 22 laps
10 J. Button Honda 1:49.330 22 laps
11 G. Fisichella Renault 1:49.380 25 laps
12 R. Schumacher Toyota 1:49.548 21 laps
13 M. Webber Red Bull 1:49.894 23 laps
14 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:49.931 19 laps
15 R. Barrichello Honda 1:50.264 22 laps
16 S. Vettel Toro Rosso 1:50.482 27 laps
17 T. Sato Super Aguri 1:50.640 16 laps
18 A. Davidson Super Aguri 1:50.648 20 laps
19 A. Sutil Spyker F1 1:50.768 22 laps
20 V. Liuzzi Toro Rosso 1:51.628 12 laps
21 S. Yamamoto Spyker F1 1:52.379 21 laps
22 F. Massa Ferrari no time 2 laps

Practice 2

01 F. Alonso McLaren 1:46.654 29 laps
02 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:46.765 29 laps
03 F. Massa Ferrari 1:46.953 27 laps
04 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:47.166 26 laps
05 J. Trulli Toyota 1:47.491 33 laps
06 R. Schumacher Toyota 1:47.946 34 laps
07 G. Fisichella Renault 1:48.086 30 laps
08 M. Webber Red Bull 1:48.271 29 laps
09 R. Kubica BMW 1:48.279 37 laps
10 H. Kovalainen Renault 1:48.567 38 laps
11 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:48.606 36 laps
12 N. Rosberg Williams 1:48.840 32 laps
13 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:48.883 17 laps
14 J. Button Honda 1:48.919 29 laps
15 R. Barrichello Honda 1:49.364 31 laps
16 A. Wurz Williams 1:49.393 28 laps
17 S. Yamamoto Spyker F1 1:49.697 32 laps
18 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:49.720 34 laps
19 T. Sato Super Aguri 1:50.168 23 laps
20 A. Sutil Spyker F1 1:50.399 24 laps
21 A. Davidson Super Aguri 1:50.542 24 laps
22 V. Liuzzi Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:50.865 9 laps

Practice 3

01 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:46.137 16 laps
02 F. Massa Ferrari 1:46.388 16 laps
03 F. Alonso McLaren 1:46.507 9 laps
04 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:46.782 13 laps
05 H. Kovalainen Renault 1:47.065 13 laps
06 J. Trulli Toyota 1:47.218 10 laps
07 N. Rosberg Williams 1:47.251 16 laps
08 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:47.359 15 laps
09 R. Schumacher Toyota 1:47.454 18 laps
10 M. Webber Red Bull 1:47.527 15 laps
11 G. Fisichella Renault 1:47.564 15 laps
12 J. Button Honda 1:47.767 17 laps
13 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:47.806 9 laps
14 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:47.838 19 laps
15 A. Wurz Williams 1:47.902 16 laps
16 T. Sato Super Aguri 1:48.129 16 laps
17 V. Liuzzi Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:48.163 20 laps
18 A. Sutil Spyker F1 1:48.348 18 laps
19 R. Barrichello Honda 1:48.528 16 laps
20 A. Davidson Super Aguri 1:48.955 16 laps
21 S. Yamamoto Spyker F1 1:49.179 14 laps
22 R. Kubica BMW no time 2 laps

[Jack_Bauer]

There will be an all Ferrari front row for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix after a stellar performance from Felipe Massa and particularly Kimi Raikkonen. Their pace was just too hot to handle for the McLaren squad who will have to settle for third and fourth. Alonso did very well to recover to third place after a spin at Rivage on his first hot lap in Q3. It will be interesting to see what sort of fuel loads the front runners are carrying; the top three are separated by just a tenth of a second which over this long circuit is not much at all. Lewis Hamilton was a further 3 tenths down on his teammate and 4 tenths down on pole. Is he carrying more fuel than the others, or is he just not quite on the pace of his teammate like last week in Italy?

Kubica was fifth fastest but will suffer a ten place penalty for an engine change, bumping Nico Rosberg up to 5th place after a brilliant lap from the young Williams driver. Heidfeld will sit alongside Rosberg on the third row ahead of Trulli, Webber, Kovalainen and Fisichella.

Qualifying Result

1. Raikkonen
2. Massa
3. Alonso
4. Hamilton
5. Kubica *ten place penalty*
6. Rosberg
7. Heidfeld
8. Webber
9. Trulli
10. Kovalainen
11. Fisichella
12. Schumacher
13. Coulthard
14. Button
15. Liuzzi
16. Wurz
17. Vettel
18. Barrichello
19. Sato
20. Sutil
21. Davidson
22. Yamamoto

[fpv_gtho]

I thought the Eiffel mountains were near the Nurburgring, and Spa was in the Ardennes forest?

[Cyco]

Hamilton's fastest Quali lap was not in Q3, but an earlier session. On that lap he was only 0.014s off Kimi's pole time, I'm thinking he is not totally lacking pace.

[ripper46]

Originally Posted by fpv_gtho

I thought the Eiffel mountains were near the Nurburgring, and Spa was in the Ardennes forest?

this is true

[fpv_gtho]

Originally Posted by Cyco

Hamilton's fastest Quali lap was not in Q3, but an earlier session. On that lap he was only 0.014s off Kimi's pole time, I'm thinking he is not totally lacking pace.

I think thats the case with all the drivers though. Q2 afterall is low fuel whilst Q3 is the race load.

[Zytek_Fan]

I might watch this one on TV depends if they do the one and only broadcast at a reasonable time.

[ScionDriver]

I'm pretty excited for the race, Ferrari knew they had to make up for their underachieving home performance last week.

[Cyco]

Originally Posted by fpv_gtho

I think thats the case with all the drivers though. Q2 afterall is low fuel whilst Q3 is the race load.

On the local (Dutch) TV coverage they show not only the final positions, but the fastest times they drivers do during the whole session.

Kimi's pole time was the fastest of the 3 sessions, followed by Hamilton's then Massa's and Alonso's (both from the final session).

[faksta]

What puzzles me is that Yamamoto isn't going last for a moment...

And yes, Sutil is doing a good job!

[Jack_Bauer]

Originally Posted by faksta

What puzzles me is that Yamamoto isn't going last for a moment...

Well it's not that surprising when you look how well his teammate is doing; Adrian Sutil up to P12 in the Spyker! Brilliant stuff, seems the B-spec car is actually a big step forward for the Dutchies.

[faksta]

Originally Posted by Jack_Bauer

Well it's not that surprising when you look how well his teammate is doing; Adrian Sutil up to P12 in the Spyker! Brilliant stuff, seems the B-spec car is actually a big step forward for the Dutchies.

I changed my post at one time with yours

[Jack_Bauer]

Ferrari have clinched the World Constructors' Championship after a comfortable one-two finish at Spa-Francorchamps, although in truth that title was effectively decided in a Parisian courtroom on Thursday afternoon. Kimi Raikkonen took the race victory with a supreme performance to keep alive his slim hopes of winning his first WDC. The Kimi/Ferrari combination was too hot to handle to handle today, and he secured his victory with a blistering first stint in which he simply drove away from Felipe Massa in the sister Ferrari. Toward the end of the race he was sitting back and just maintained a comfortable gap to Massa who was pushing extremely hard to try and close the gap.

McLaren had no answer for the pace of the Ferraris today. Alonso picked up the final podium spot but never really looked like threatening Massa for second place, but will be satisfied that he closed the gap in the title race to Lewis Hamilton by a further point. Hamilton finished fourth but didn't have the pace to challenge his more experienced teammate and his championship lead is now down to just two points. It was real heart-in-the-mouth stuff for the McLaren team on the opening lap as it looked for a moment that their nightmare week was about to get a whole lot worse through La Source and Eau Rouge. Hamilton attempted to sneak around the outside of Alonso in the opening hairpin but was pushed out wide aggressively by the Spaniard. They were side by side on the run down to Eau Rouge and someone had to yield surely? At the last possible moment Hamilton saw sense and backed out as they swept to the right on the hill toward Radillon, but it was some real ballsy stuff from both the championship protagonists, two great competitors at the peak of their game.

Behind the front four there was some very close and competitive racing for the "best of the rest" spot. Heidfeld had a dismal start and dropped a handful of places, so did extremely well to recover up to fifth place. Rosberg had a good race, but will be disappointed to not be able to convert his good grid slot to a fifth place finish. Webber was one of the stars of the day with a fine performance, including a thrilling wheel-to-wheel move on Heikki Kovalainen on the long straight towards Les Combes. Kovalainen took the final points paying position by just half a second from Robert Kubica, who will be gutted that his brave display after his engine penalty did not get rewarded with the points he probably deserved. Kovalainen showed some excellent defensive race craft in the final stint as Kubica was glued to his gearbox for lap after lap, making several attempts to take that final World Championship point from the young Finn. Schumacher came in tenth, finishing ahead of teammate Trulli; a very rare occurence this season!

Liuzzi and Barrichello finished ahead of the usual backmarkers of Sutil, Sato, Davidson and Yamamoto, although that doesn't really do justice to the performance of Sutil who got the Spyker as high as P12 in the first stint, overtaking experienced campaigners like Jarno Trulli on the way. Although he faded on the harder tyres it was still a fine performance from the youngster who, if he can cut the mistakes out his driving, showed he has the raw talent to drive for a more illustrious team. There was a quite high rate of attrition with five retirements in total: Fisichella, Vettel, Coulthard, Wurz and Button. Quite a contrast to the excellent reliability shown in Monza, I guess the second high-speed race in a week was perhaps too much for the engine and hydraulic systems of some of the cars.

So with the title race as close as it's been all season things are really coming to crunch time for the top drivers. Everyone in F1 will be taking a step into the unknown in a couple of weeks' time as the Fuji Circuit hosts its first Japanese Grand Prix for many a year, but on this showing it seems like Ferrari may have the speed advantage over McLaren at this time. Another couple of victories like that for the in-form Raikkonen and it will make things very interesting indeed for the final title showdown in Brazil. Will Hamilton be able to handle the mounting pressure? Will Alonso be able to make it a hat-trick of titles despite his crumbling relationship with his team? Or will Raikkonen come from nowhere and take his maiden title against all the odds? The last three races will be very interesting indeed...

Race Result

1. Raikkonen
2. Massa
3. Alonso
4. Hamilton
5. Heidfeld
6. Rosberg
7. Webber
8. Kovalainen
9. Kubica
10. Schumacher
11. Trulli
12. Liuzzi
13. Barrichello
14. Sutil
15. Sato
16. Davidson
17 Yamamoto
ret Button
ret Wurz
ret Coulthard
ret Vettel
ret Fisichella

[Ferrer]

Hamilton's face after race was priceless.

[JRodrigues]

Originally Posted by Ferrer

Hamilton's face after race was priceless.

As was Kimi's donut at the end.. We don't see them anymore..