2023 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa-Francorchamps, July 28 - 30

[Sieper]

Incidents like this are sometimes over-analyzed to a point where it becomes unreasonable. Sometimes you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and blame cannot or does not always have to be assigned to someone. We are talking about events that are unfolding in the space of a few seconds with a lot of moving parts that can be impossible to account for for all drivers.

The only thing you definitely know as a driver is that if you start p3 or lower on this very track, --- is extremely likely to happen in turn 1 on lap 1, hence it is wise to be overly cautious and rather lose a place or two snd build your race from there, than ruin your race completely. Verstappen said he used this approach for that reason here, and it worked out fine.

Piastri will likely learn from it and has surely already moved on.

exactly. That is why the start is also so exciting. We just don't know how it will turn out and things can happen here. And usually do.

Verstappen now had it easy (as he could rely on his car) while f.e. for Lec and Ham track position was everything (so close was the performance of their cars). But Lec had that from the qualy and didn't lose it in turn 1 or up Kemmel (yes, to Perez).

[DDopey]

Perez wrecked his tyres, if he'd kept them alive then Lewis would have likely never seen the gap. Swap positions and Perez would have done the same thing. It was a racing incident nothing more.
As Senna said if your not going for the gap then you are no longer racing.

So the point with this is, there is a gap, but Lewis understeered and slided into Perez. Not on purpose, but he was the cause of the collision. My issue with seeing this as a racing incident is that you need to be in control of your car. If you are not and cause a collision, you should be punished. Now let clear, I do not think Lewis did this on purpose, but we will never be 100% sure if a driver introduces oversteer on purpose or it is because of a misjudgement. And thus I think in this kind of situation a penalty is always in place.

[Wouter]

Who won F1 Driver of the Day?

Max Verstappen won the vote after coming from sixth to win the Belgian Grand Prix, albeit with the smallest share of the vote
of any winner this season – and just 0.9% separating him, Charles Leclerc and Yuki Tsunoda.

Max Verstappen - 15.5%

Charles Leclerc - 14.8%

Yuki Tsunoda - 14.6%

[Sieper]

Many drivers were performing very well. Good to see this reflected in the voting percentages.

[FanAmp]

Russell’s F1 Belgian GP spoiled by misjudgement behind ailing Piastri

https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/russ ... /10502635/

[chrisc90]

Went back and watched the first 6 laps of the race specifically the area at the end of the Kemmel straight with Max, Lewis and Charles.

Lap 4 top speeds:
Lec:314kmh
Max:338kmh(DRS)
Ham:330kmh(DRS)



Lap 5 top speeds:
Lec: 314kmh
Max: 336kmh (DRS)
Ham: 328kmh (DRS)



Lap 6 top speeds:
Lec: 313kmh
Max: 341kmh (DRS)
Ham: 317kmh



Lap 4-5 Lewis is around 14-17kmh faster than Charges on average along the straight. Max was about 7kmh faster behind Lewis.
Lap 6 Lewis is about 4kmh faster than Charles along the whole straight. Max was passed Lewis at 33kmh speed difference. It also looks like a different level of deployment looking at the curves and possibly the recharge.

Lap 9 when Max overtakes Charles. Charles is 316kmh and Max is 340kmh


I do wonder if Max actually used now overtake or didnt do any recharge on the overtake on Charles or Lewis. This could be where a little bit of the speed differential comes from on the RB. Without going back and looking through hours of overtakes hoping theres cars behind say Max, Lewis or Charles overtaking on the end of straights to see recharge behaviour. I actually do believe that RB doesnt bother to recharge at the end of a straight on a 'push or overtake' lap. More so a overtake as they can get the energy back from elsewhere.

The overtake from Max on Charles was 24kmh difference in speed, albeit it was a on the brakes move.
The overtake from Max on Lewis was 33kmh difference in speed.

Lewis advantage with DRS was 14-16kmh on Charles. That is quite a chunk of speed difference between the two cars. Of course deployment etc can come into it, but I imagine both were on the overtake button which just leaves the recharge at the end of the straight/clipping.

I would like to go back to the quali runs if there was any dry running with DRS where it was wet enough for the cars to fully push through eau rouge/kemmel straight with minimal fuel load and full deployment to see the top speeds with DRS. If anyone has those numbers to hand it would be interesting to look at. Especially to compare heavy vs light fuel loads.

[Wouter]

Hilarious Max And GP Banter And the Best Team Radio | 2023 Belgian Grand Prix |

Paramount+ FORMULA 1
July 31 2023 #F1 #BelgianGP

The airwaves were busy on a wet weekend of racing in Spa! Here's the best team radio from across the grid, in association with Paramount+
.

Gianpiero Lambiase started his F1 career in 2005. MAX was only seven years old at that time.
He was an engineer for Paul di Resta, Fisichella, Liuzzi, Perez, Kvyat and now Max Verstappen.

.

[wesley123]

From P6 to P1 in the car that is easily a second faster than the rest of the field. Truly impressive

[organic]

Went back and watched the first 6 laps of the race specifically the area at the end of the Kemmel straight with Max, Lewis and Charles.

Lap 4 top speeds:
Lec:314kmh
Max:338kmh(DRS)
Ham:330kmh(DRS)

https://i.ibb.co/CwYHSLZ/Screenshot-202 ... 200242.png

Lap 5 top speeds:
Lec: 314kmh
Max: 336kmh (DRS)
Ham: 328kmh (DRS)

https://i.ibb.co/fvFQtjP/Screenshot-202 ... 200158.png

Lap 6 top speeds:
Lec: 313kmh
Max: 341kmh (DRS)
Ham: 317kmh

https://i.ibb.co/8j32KbS/Screenshot-202 ... 200457.png

Lap 4-5 Lewis is around 14-17kmh faster than Charges on average along the straight. Max was about 7kmh faster behind Lewis.
Lap 6 Lewis is about 4kmh faster than Charles along the whole straight. Max was passed Lewis at 33kmh speed difference. It also looks like a different level of deployment looking at the curves and possibly the recharge.

Lap 9 when Max overtakes Charles. Charles is 316kmh and Max is 340kmh
https://i.ibb.co/N649HFx/Screenshot-202 ... 201708.png

Lewis advantage with DRS was 14-16kmh on Charles. That is quite a chunk of speed difference between the two cars. Of course deployment etc can come into it, but I imagine both were on the overtake button which just leaves the recharge at the end of the straight/clipping.

I would like to go back to the quali runs if there was any dry running with DRS where it was wet enough for the cars to fully push through eau rouge/kemmel straight with minimal fuel load and full deployment to see the top speeds with DRS. If anyone has those numbers to hand it would be interesting to look at. Especially to compare heavy vs light fuel loads.

The tow is having too big of an effect in the overtaking scenarios above to get a clear picture of the actual top speed

Also yes in quali RB have 0 clipping at spa whereas Ferrari/Merc have a little clipping for some teams (more clipping for the draggier cars as they spend longer on the straights). Honda's ERS advantage visible in the telemetry as usual on the highest speed tracks - we'll see it in Monza/Vegas I imagine

[Sieper]

From P6 to P1 in the car that is easily a second faster than the rest of the field. Truly impressive

Was P1 actually, P6 was only due to gearbox penalty. Makes it even less impressive. Truly.

[Just_a_fan]

Can't beleived Lewis is being blamed for this and he gave Sainz almost two meters of space! Lol

I can only see people, including me, saying he had no part in this, it is fully on Sainz and Piastri, and both got what they deserved, hence case closed

trying to put more oil into the flame to keep this going for few more pages?

Yep I just read this thread and literally no one has blamed Hamilton. It’s clearly just trolling. Unfortunately this is happening more and more from the usual suspects. I guess they’re growing more and more frustrated that Merc (for now) just can’t give HAM a car that he can properly fight VER with and it’s starting to show

This post, although hiding behind "not saying he did anything wrong" actually opens with "Hamiltons [sic] role in this...", goes on to say he didn't leave room (he did), before ending with an accusation of squeezing.

It's the equivalent of starting with "With all due respect" before going on to insult someone.

Hamiltons role in this should not be ignored. Not saying he does anything wrong, he can do what he did.
But he is on the outside line, there is gonna be 1 car on the inside, there could be two, if someone had a better start. He leaves less than 1 carwidth from the white line, while being the outside car in that corner, thats potential for problems. All other cars on the outside line leave way more space.
Sort of ironic after comments from yesterday about supposed squeezing from Perez, Hamilton shows what squeezing looks like.

Anyway, onwards to...the summer break. Aargh!

[organic]

Is this interesting to anyone?



Not sure exactly what dots correlate to what upgrades, but an interesting overview nonetheless

Alpine, Ferrari and Haas all look lighter than others on upgrades.

Luis F1's chart when he releases them will be far more useful

Found it on twitter:

[PlatinumZealot]

The size and cost of the upgrade is what it doesn't capture.

[organic]

The size and cost of the upgrade is what it doesn't capture.

Indeed.

Charts such as this:



Made by LuisFeF1 on Twitter are the best I've seen at trying to summarise upgrades brought by teams & when.

Of course it lacks nuance but almost all handy visual representations will sacrifice on detail for clarity

[ringo]

Perez wrecked his tyres, if he'd kept them alive then Lewis would have likely never seen the gap. Swap positions and Perez would have done the same thing. It was a racing incident nothing more.
As Senna said if your not going for the gap then you are no longer racing.

So the point with this is, there is a gap, but Lewis understeered and slided into Perez. Not on purpose, but he was the cause of the collision. My issue with seeing this as a racing incident is that you need to be in control of your car. If you are not and cause a collision, you should be punished. Now let clear, I do not think Lewis did this on purpose, but we will never be 100% sure if a driver introduces oversteer on purpose or it is because of a misjudgement. And thus I think in this kind of situation a penalty is always in place.

He was in control of the car. It was doing what he wanted it to do. He knew it was understeering. It's basic driving style. Look on how Alonso drives. As much as the car understeers, he is driving it that way.
But i wont argue the point with Perez and Lewis. It was a racing incident made to be because of Perez who is always making contact with anybody who passes him in his rocketship.