Mercedes' George Russell has taken victory at the Belgian Grand Prix after a gutsy late switch to a single stop strategy. Lewis Hamilton finished a very close second while McLaren's Oscar Piastri ended up third, less than a second behind the Mercedes duo.
Ham is probably pissed that Russell cherry picked him from out of no where. He did all the hard work calling the team strats, forcing the other teams calls, and covering off the leclerc who turned into a dud. I bet that he spent 5 to 10 laps nursing his tyres, expecting Russell to pit but was blindsided by the improvisation.
Yeah he spent the whole of that last stint managing his tires and watching his mirrors when he should have been attacking the car in front
I think we shouldn't expect Max to win at all anytime soon. Maybe he will at his home gp, but when was the last time he went 5 races without a win. It is also the second race in a row with no Red Bull on the podium. They just do not have the pace at to win.
The race would have likely been different had Max started P1.
Mercedes was quite lucky here. Fortunate enough that Hamilton wasnt about to get along side Russell, and that there were never really a side-by-side action unfolding and thus slowing both cars down more significantly. It easily couldve been a scenario where they fight harder, lose more time and lose the 1st place position to Piastri, who wasnt far away in the end. Mercedes tends to be the procentage team, but I do think that with Hamilton leaving, Mercedes opted to favour Russell in this scenario. In a scenario where Hamilton stays at Mercedes, they do the percentage play and swap Hamilton and Russell and go for a 1-2. This time it worked. It might not at future dates.
I think we shouldn't expect Max to win at all anytime soon. Maybe he will at his home gp, but when was the last time he went 5 races without a win. It is also the second race in a row with no Red Bull on the podium. They just do not have the pace at to win.
I thought he'd at least get on the podium. IF they can't win at this track it's hard to see them win anywhere else really but they can probably luck out a few ones here and there. Monza is the next best chance, but after that? I don't know. The law of averages has caught up with them. When you have won so many races in a row for so long you know a downturn is coming at some point. Max to Merc looking more and more likely. The more successful Merc are on track the more likely Verstappen is going there.
Last edited by Hammerfist on 28 Jul 2024, 16:57, edited 1 time in total.
I think we shouldn't expect Max to win at all anytime soon. Maybe he will at his home gp, but when was the last time he went 5 races without a win. It is also the second race in a row with no Red Bull on the podium. They just do not have the pace at to win.
Going to be a diffficult day in Zandvoort for Verstappen. Expecting a very fast Mclaren.
The main takeaway of this race is Verstappen extending his lead despite a penalty and not driving the fastest car. If Norris wants a WDC, he needs to stop the small mistakes or just get them all out of his system in a single race. Seeing how Piastri is improving I fear this year might turn out to have been his best shot.
I think we shouldn't expect Max to win at all anytime soon. Maybe he will at his home gp, but when was the last time he went 5 races without a win. It is also the second race in a row with no Red Bull on the podium. They just do not have the pace at to win.
Going to be a diffficult day in Zandvoort for Verstappen. Expecting a very fast Mclaren.
The main takeaway of this race is Verstappen extending his lead despite a penalty and not driving the fastest car. If Norris wants a WDC, he needs to stop the small mistakes or just get them all out of his system in a single race. Seeing how Piastri is improving I fear this year might turn out to have been his best shot.
Lando is too good at going backwards in these races. You are never going to beat Verstappen like that.
I dont see today as any different than Hungary now that I think about it.
Lead driver gets worse tyre strategy due to team doing what they can to cover other teams and maximise points, and second driver ends up leading on a track where you can't overtake easily without a large enough delta. The tyres didn't provide enough delta and George's downforce setup effectively negated the DRS.
Difference here is the lack of acknowledging the gifted track position to the second driver due to their performance on the tyres, which didn't seem to be the actual difference maker in the race.
Great race and very exciting. Once again all of the cars are really close to one another. Merc seem to have an efficiency advantage over the others that pays off at tracks like Canada, Spa and Silverstone
Unfortunate about track position being so important, but the new asphalt changed the game. I suppose next year's race will be more of a 1-stopper again
Last edited by organic on 28 Jul 2024, 17:16, edited 1 time in total.
I think the question is that, if pretty much everyone was saying that dirty air was an issue and that all the drivers were saying that the tyres held up and didn't have much deg, why did only one driver of the front pack do the one stop. Felt like the drivers were more focussed on chasing each other rather than focusing on their ultimate race time.
I think the question is that, if pretty much everyone was saying that dirty air was an issue and that all the drivers were saying that the tyres held up and didn't have much deg, why did only one driver of the front pack do the one stop. Felt like the drivers were more focussed on chasing each other rather than focusing on their ultimate race time.
Sainz should definitely have gone for a one stop also. Very weird of Ferrari to not try and risk it like Russell did…
I still think RB20 (Max) & MCL38 (both drivers) were the fastest cars.
But they spent almost the entire race in dirty air, driving to the pace of the car in front. Both teams simply chose the vanilla option for their stops, where in-lap and out-lap were all in dirty air. I think Norris' 2nd stop was the only one where he was able to run in clean air on fresh tyres. Max's race was killed (he was on for an easy P3) as he couldn't take advantage of sector2 where all his pace was lying unexplored. His race was further killed by RedBull team allowing Perez to pull Russel in a DRS train for some 10-15 laps, making it impossible for Max to DRS overtake Russel (I think this is where Russel gained his tyre life as he didn't need to late brake into T1/T5 to defend against Max) as the pace delta wasn't much. Norris' race was killed by his own team by being pussies (pardon my french) when it came to pit-stops - they should trust their car's and driver's ability to preserve tyres, and could have easily extended his stints that would have allowed more clean air running.
DRS overtake was difficult, because the pace delta across the top four teams isn't much. Plus, the shortening of the Kemmel straight DRS, killed atleast 10-15 overtakes that would have easily happened, had they kept the zone same as it has always been until last year. Is FoM/FiA trying to reduce overtaking, to make the races more 'entertaining' ?
Though Russel and Hamilton maximized with their driving, Mercedes "lucked into" a 1-2 because McLaren and RedBull made too-conservative calls about their pit stops and also because Russel's intelligence to scope out a single stop. McLaren, i would say, gifted the 1-2 to Mercedes.
Last edited by venkyhere on 28 Jul 2024, 17:42, edited 1 time in total.
