2013 Belgian GP - Spa

[munudeges]

I did think the Perez overtake was a racing incident but having seen it again.......he's moved over for no good reason at all. Like his opposite number in the Lotus when it comes down to it he has no spatial awareness.

[PlatinumZealot]

Rosberg also reeled Lewis upto 1.9 seconds. At the end of the day, all those three had almost similar race pace and they finished half a minute behind Vettel.

Rosberg get a free 1.5 seconds from pitstops, new tyres and Lewis driving in traffic... so nothing special from him either.

Webber couldn't really get any closer to Rosberg be cause he had older tyres and the fact that the Mercedes balance came into the sweet spot near the end of the race. It was clear still that the RB9 was the car to have; 10kph faster through eau rouge and about the same amount faster on top speed than the Merc.

[sennafan24]

Rosberg get a free 1.5 seconds from pitstops, new tyres and Lewis driving in traffic... so nothing special from him either.

No great shakes, but Rosberg did creep up to Lewis towards the end of the race, without the aid of traffic.

[Helios]

Hehehe

[Shrieker]

... At least we won't see a RBR on the top of the podium in 15 days.

I would not bet the farm on that outcome.
I'll have a look at the betting odds and will tell you in the Monza thread how it looks.

For now this his how the championship looks to the betting man.

http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/3871/jl4g.png

http://www.f1technical.net/forum/viewto ... 45#p396745

Look what i said 10 months ago...

Too bad the race effectively ended on lap 1, but in hindsight it would've ended on lap 2 if the lap one overtake wasn't on. It was a bit of a yawn fest after that.

[LionKing]

It was clear still that the RB9 was the car to have; 10kph faster through eau rouge and about the same amount faster on top speed than the Merc.

I don't believe this at all. If RBR were really that much faster in top speed, with this advantage plus DRS, Webber would have flown by Rosberg in DRS zones...

[PlatinumZealot]

Ross Brawn said the Merc's balanced changed for the better as the race closed, so it is entirely plausible that Rosberg had much better traction since then. Contrast that to the beginning of the race when merc were sitting ducks and they couldn't even finish their seventh gear on the straights.

[Traction]

It was ..quite boring..
Strangely when it's a RBR win the race has 90% chances to be boring as hell
At least we won't see a RBR on the top of the podium in 15 days..
But Great Drive from Vettel and Alonso , Unlucky Kimi..

Sums up popular opinion around here..when Lewis leads from the front it of course a fantastic race

[myurr]

It was ..quite boring..
Strangely when it's a RBR win the race has 90% chances to be boring as hell
At least we won't see a RBR on the top of the podium in 15 days..
But Great Drive from Vettel and Alonso , Unlucky Kimi..

Sums up popular opinion around here..when Lewis leads from the front it of course a fantastic race

Depends. More often than not he has to work for it. Vettel had so much in hand today that he could easily have finished a further 15 seconds down the road had he pushed. He was cruising and unfortunately most of the rest of the top 10 were in a settled order for much of the race.

Lewis was cruising in Hungary, but even then had to pull off some overtakes when he came out after his pitstops. Thankfully behind him there was still plenty going on which all contributed to a good race and DRS wasn't making it trivial to overtake.

Spa didn't really have too much of that. There were sporadic pieces of action but most of the overtakes were DRS assisted, to the point of it being trivially easy to pass, and those that weren't tended to be further down the field. Alonso pulled some great moves but that wasn't really enough to salvage the race. So yes on reflection it wasn't that great a race and was one of the more boring of the season.

[vall]

From Vettel's car it seemed that Lewis made a mistake on lap ot (took too much kerb) and so Vettel overtook him easily,,,

[zeph]

Alonso is still doing a lot better than Ferrari in the odds. I personally also think that Alonso is better than Ferrari and that he is depressed about that. When will he ever get a car that worth his talent and personal performance?

Agreed. His best shot was in 2010 and it has been downhill ever since. Hard not to lose heart in that situation.

[Ozan]

I think Merc and RBR took a gamble, merc took the wet setup, rbr took the ultra-low df dry setup, and for merc the gamble didn't pay off. I hope in monza they will decide ultra-low df.

[SectorOne]

It was obvious Mercedes aero package was the wrong package for the conditions. No wonder two lowDF packages finished in front of them.
Even with or without Hamilton´s moment in Eau Rouge Vettel would have passed him because he had a close to 10km/h advantage just after Eau Rouge.

I thought the top 4 drove a beautiful race, they simply maximized the potential today.

Also, once again the Vettel-radar picked up Webber in close proximity and engaged mysterious clutch problems.
If it´s not KERS it´s clutch problems.

[henra]

I hope in monza they will decide ultra-low df.

And then it will rain...

Regarding Low df vs High df today: Surely the Low df setup seemed to be the somewhat better choice today. That said Merc seemed to struggle with the tyres again a little bit. Despite the Higher df setup they had to come into the pits much earlier than the RB. Rosberg faired rather better over the distance compared to Hamilton. He was 'washed' to the front without too much fighting. Hamilton had to fight a couple of times and he paid for it. At the end they both met directly on track again. Like a couple of times in the first races this season, just the other way round. Smells a bit like tyres to me.

[WhiteBlue]

It was obvious Mercedes aero package was the wrong package for the conditions. No wonder two lowDF packages finished in front of them.

It wasn't the package. It was setup. If you watched Q3 you may remember that they pulled both Mercs into the garage for wing adjustment during the session. That hurt them in the race. If they had done it the way Ferrari did it Alonso would not have made it to the podium. So it was not by Ferrari's strength that he got there but by Mercedes's screw up.