Hamilton wins Belgian Grand Prix from Pole

Lewis Hamilton started from pole to win the Belgian Grand Prix 2015 at spa.

This was the first race where the new driver assistance rules came into force and drivers had to decide their own clutch settings. So it was expected that a few drivers will face issues during start. If the clutch setting is not right, then there will be more revs and wheel spin and others will pull away. The predictions came true and it was Nico Rosberg who messed up his start. He was P2 in the starting grid and immediately fell down to P5. Lewis Hamilton however led from the start to win the race. Later on Nico Rosberg sped through and beat other cars by virtue of the superior pace of his Mercedes car and finished in 2nd position in the race. Romain Grosjean of Lotus finished in the podium after a torrid two years for Lotus.

Sebastian Vettel of Ferrari was on a one stop race as Ferrari decided to take the gamble of one stop where the tyre supplier Pirelli had advised two stop race. It appeared that Vettel would score a podium but on the penultimate lap, his right rear tyre blew up ending his podium hopes. He was however classified to have finished in 12th.

Daniil Kvyat of Red Bull came in 4th. Sergio Perez of Force India finished in 5th. Felipe Massa of Williams was 6th. Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari came in 7th. Max Verstappen of Toro Rosso finished in eighth. Valtteri Bottas of Williams was 9th. Marcus Ericsson of Sauber finished in 10th and last points paying position.

Felipe Nasr of Toro Rosso was 11th. He was followed by Vettel who got this position by virtue of retiring in the penultimate lap till then he was scheduled for a podium position.

Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button of McLaren finished in 13th and 14th position. They were both down by 1 lap. Roberto Merhi won the inter-Marussia battle to beat his teammate Will Stevens to finish in 15th and 16th positions respectively.

Belgian F1 Grand Prix 2015 Results

Sebastian Vettel wins Belgian Grand Prix 2013

Sebastian Vettel overtook pole sitter Lewis Hamilton in the Kemmel straight and there after comfortably maintained his lead to win the Belgian Grand Prix at spa. Fernando Alonso made a good start from his P9 starting position and came second. Pole sitter Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes finished on third position.

Rain evaded the Belgian Grand Prix and hence the results were not as interesting as yesterday’s qualifying. Predictably Sebastian Vettel comfortably maintained his lead after overtaking in the first lap.

Mark Webber didn’t have a good start and finished at 5th position. His season seems to be finishing in a whimper. Too often this year we have seen either the Red Bull messing up pit stops of Mark Webber or some problem cropping up in his car. So he must be having some relief at getting a few points in this race.

Jenson Button finished at sixth. Felipe Massa finished at 7th. Romain Grosjean finished on 8th. He must have been surprised to be pushed off the track by Sergio Perez as Grosjean in 2012 was known for his rash driving and was even banned for a race. Perez was duly handed a penalty which pushed him down and he eventually finished out of points at 11. Adrian Sutil finished at 9th. Daniel Ricciardo of Toro Rosso who is in the running to get the Red Bull seat vacated by Mark Webber next year, had a terrible qualifying yesterday. However, he managed to get the 10th place and importantly finish ahead of his team mate Jean-Eric Vergne who finished at 12th.

This race also saw Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus retiring from the race. Earlier his car was seen throwing black dust from the front brake. This ended his record breaking run of 27 straight points finishes.

Race Results in Belgian Grand Prix 2013

1. Sebastian Vettel                Red Bull

2. Fernando Alonso               Ferrari

3. Lewis Hamilton                  Mercedes

4. Nico Rosberg                      Mercedes

5. Mark Webber                    Red Bull

6. Jenson Button                    McLaren

7. Felipe Massa                      Ferrari

8. Romain Grosjean               Lotus

9. Adrian Sutil                        Force India

10. Daniel Ricciardo              Toro Rosso

11. Sergio Perez                    Mclaren

12. Jean-Eric Vergne             Toro Rosso

13. Nico Hulkenberg                         Sauber

14. Esteban Gutierrez           Sauber

15. Valteri Bottas                   Williams

16. Giedo van der Garde      Caterham

17. Pastor Maldonado          Williams

18. Jules Bianchi                    Marussia

19. Max Chilton                     Caterham

Retirements in Belgian Grand Prix

Paul di Resta                          Force India

Kimi Raikkonen                     Lotus

Charles Pic                             Marussia

Lewis Hamilton on Pole in Belgian Grand Prix

Lewis Hamilton on Pole in Belgian Grand Prix 2013

Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes scores Pole in rain in F1 Belgian Grand Prix qualifying.

In the Q3, rain was predicted, so all the cars started immediately as soon as the session was flagged on. However, rain immediately started and it came to notice that Force India had put their driver Di Resta on intermediate tyres. So he set the first bench mark time and it was very late when drivers could beat it. Paul di Resta scored P5.

Lewis Hamilton in the dying moments snatched the P1 slot from Sebastian Vettel with a time of 2:01.012. Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull came second with a time of 2:01.200

Vettel’s teammate in Red Bull, Mark Webber scored P3 with a time of 2:01.325 seconds. Nico Rosberg of Mercedes will line up by his side in the second row after he scored 2:02.251

Jenson Button of McLaren scored P6. Romain Grosjean and Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus will line up in the 4th row as they qualified P7 and P8.

Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa of Ferrari will start in fifth row. Unless there is rain tomorrow, the championship hopes of Fernando Alonso seems to be fading away.

Drama in Q1 in Belgian Grand Prix F1 Qualifying

In the First part of the qualifying in Belgian Grand Prix 2013, rain brought a few surprises. Towards the end of the Q1 the track was drying up and hence times were tumbling faster. Giedo van der Garde a backmarker, shot into limelight when he posted the third fastest time P3 of 2:00.564. The Fastest time was of Fernando Alonso at 2:00.190 followed by Lewis Hamilton at 2:00.368

During Q1 the six drivers who were relegated were:

17. Pastor Maldonado, Williams
18. Jean-Eric Vergne, Toro Rosso
19. Daniel Ricciardo, Toro Rosso
20. Valteri Bottas, Williams
21. Esteban Gutierrez, Sauber
22. Charles Pic, Marussia

So out of the four perennial backmarkers belonging to Caterham and Marussia, only Charles Pic of Marussia finished in his familiar 22nd spot. The other three escaped relegation, which is nothing sort of historical.

In the Q2, Giedo van der Garde scored his career best 14th at the F1 Belgian Grand Prix came 2013 and stayed ahead of Jules Bianchi of Marussia 15th and Max Chilton of Caterham at 16th.

Nico Hulkenberg of Sauber scored P11 followed by Adrian Sutil of Force India at P12 and Sergio Perez of McLaren at P13.

Final Qualifying Results in Belgian Grand Prix

1. Lewis Hamilton                  Mercedes

2. Sebastian Vettel                Red Bull

3. Mark Webber                    Red Bull

4. Nico Rosberg                      Mercedes

5. Paul di Resta                      Force India

6. Jenson Button                    McLaren

7. Romain Grosjean               Lotus

8. Kimi Raikkonen                 Lotus

9. Fernando Alonso               Ferrari

10. Felipe Massa                    Ferrari

11. Nico Hulkenberg              Sauber

12. Adrian Sutil                     Force India

13. Sergio Perez                    Mclaren

14. Giedo van der Garde      Caterham

15. Jules Bianchi                    Marussia

16. Max Chilton                     Caterham

17. Pastor Maldonado          Williams

18. Jean-Eric Vergne             Toro Rosso

19. Daniel Ricciardo              Toro Rosso

20. Valteri Bottas                   Williams

21. Esteban Gutierrez           Sauber

22. Charles Pic                       Marussia

Grosjean banned for 1 race and fined 50k Euros

Grosjean Banned for One race and Fined 50k Euros

As we had hoped, FIA took notice of the egregious blunder by Romain Grosjean of Lotus during the Belgian Grand Prix (http://www.arjunaubacha.blogspot.in/2012/09/button-wins-from-pole-in-belgian-grand.html ) and handed him a one race ban and fined him 50,000 euros. Ideally he should have been banned for the remainder of the season, however, FIA decided to hand him only a one race ban. We hope that this will instill some sense in the minds of the young Romain Grosjean and he will introspect enough and come back as a better driver.

The FIA statement said "The stewards regard this incident as an extremely serious breach of the regulations which had the potential to cause injury to others. The stewards note the team conceded the action of the driver was an extremely serious mistake and an error of judgement. Neither the team nor the driver made any submission in mitigation of penalty."

Romain Grosjean was the chief culprit in triggering the accident and it led to removal of championship leader Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton. Sergio Perez's race was taken out. Kamui Kobayashi suffered a lot of damages and could race without points and finished in the 13th place in the F1 Belgian Grand Prix.

FIA has allowed Lotus to use another F1 driver in place of Romain Grosjean. It is to be seen if they allow their reserve driver Jerome D'Ambrosio to race or get someone else from outside. Though Jerome D'Ambrosio is the reserve driver, he never impressed during his stint with Marussia racing. Lotus is yet to announce who will replace Romain Grosjean.

Grosjean will miss the F1 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. Motor racing fans should thank FIA for their tough action in banning Grosjean for causing serious crash in the Belgian Grand Prix 2012.

Button wins from Pole in Belgian Grand Prix

Jenson Button Wins from Pole in Belgian Grand Prix

Jenson Button of Mclaren won the Belgian Grand Prix starting from pole using a one stop strategy. 

As I mentioned earlier this was to be a interesting Belgian Grand Prix race.

The start of the Belgian Grand Prix was pretty eventful with Romain Grosjean cutting across Lewis Hamilton while taking a corner. Predictably he got hit and then dangerously jumped over Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari and Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber. He nearly hit Kobayashi’s hand. Romain Grosjean this year has shows good speed and an equally bad erratic crash prone driving.

FIA authorities should remember that they had earlier banned a Japanese driver and Grosjean should be added to that list for saving a few lives.

Michael Schumacher who was on 2^nd position and was about to be overtaken by Sebastian Vettel, stopped on the 20^th lap to change over to hard tyres. He had planned for a one stop strategy. He then joined in 8^th position. This was a disastrous strategy, as Schumacher was on No. 2 and stayed there for too long and lost a lot of time vis-à-vis his other competitors who closed in to him after doing one stop. Mercedes didn’t manage a good pit stop from Schumacher either. As a result, Vettel who stopped a lap later could rejoin at 6^th position as Red Bull team managed to change his tyres at only 3.7 seconds. This incident will be investigated after the race.

There were some interesting racing between Raikkonen and Schumacher at Spa in the Belgian Grand Prix. Raikkonen passed Schumacher on the outside of the chicane in the 32^nd lap and then Schumacher passed him again by using DRS in the DRS zone.

Narain Karthikeyan spun and hit the barriers in the 32^nd lap and one of the wheels was seen coming out but Narain was safe.

Kimi again passed Schumacher on the 34^th lap and then Nico Hulkenberg too passed Schumacher. It seems Schumacher was trying to conserve his tyres. Schumacher again passed Hulkenberg using the DRS keeping the spectators entertained. Mercedes decided it was enough and then brought Schumacher to pit in lap 36. Ross Brawn was supposed to be a superb strategist but this was a blunder deciding a one stop strategy when Schumacher was losing so much time in the first stop. Schumacher despite pitting for the second stop continued to lose time.

Button won peacefully with his one stop strategy. This is his first win in Spa. This was also Jenson Button's first pole in Belgian Grand Prix. Vettel could also make his one stop strategy work and finished second. A two stopping Raikkonen finished third. The big loser being Michael Schumacher who finished seventh. Hulkenberg finished 4^th, Massa 5^th and Webber 6^th. Vergne was 8^th, Ricciardo 9^th and Paul di Resta 10^th.

Belgian Grand Prix Final Standings: 

1.     Jenson Button

2.     Sebastian Vettel

3.     Kimi Raikkonen

4.     Nico Hulkenberg

5.     Felipe Massa

6.     Mark Webber

7.     Michael Schumacher

8.     Jean Eric Vergne

9.     Daniel Ricciardo

10. Paul di Resta

11. Nico Rosberg

12. Bruno Senna

13. Kamui Kobayashi

14. Vitaly Petrov

15. Timo Glock

16. Charles Pic

17. Heikki Kovalainen

18. Pedro de la Rosa

Drivers who Did Not Finish Belgian Grand Prix

Narain Karthikeyan

Pastor Maldonado

Sergio Perez

Fernando Alonso

Lewis Hamilton

Romain Grosjean

There will be post race investigations by the stewards of the Belgian Grand Prix 2012.