Belgian GP 2010 - Spa Francorchamps

[Just_a_fan]

We can be happy because Massa was ahead in qualy and the race and Alonso was nowhere! Poetic justice after Germany?

Agreed. Massa drove a good, if quiet, race today.

[komninosm]

Seb was caught out by Button braking earlier than he expected.

To me it looked alot like Webber's Valencia incident actually. If you watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDSo2q2Bpko#t=1m27s, you'll see his front wing starting to wobble alot as soon as he gets into the wake of the McLaren.

Yeah, when half his wing was in slip stream that half lifted up a lot. Comments?

[jddh1]

This race was great if you ask me. Why? Because Hamilton won. Later

fixed

I've been misquoted. I should sue you for slander.

[JMN]

Seb was caught out by Button braking earlier than he expected.

To me it looked alot like Webber's Valencia incident actually. If you watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDSo2q2Bpko#t=1m27s, you'll see his front wing starting to wobble alot as soon as he gets into the wake of the McLaren.

Yeah, when half his wing was in slip stream that half lifted up a lot. Comments?

Eddie actually commented it in the BBC broadcast from the Virgin van. He compared the situation to Valencia aswell and was of the impression the Red Bull drivers have a different perception of breaking zones and to quote him "perhaps that's where they make their big gains". Furthermore it supports the comments in the RB6 thread about the car being brilliant while in front, but hard to master when having to overtake stuff. Button disagreed on the braking notion though. Even said it was completely dry in that corner.

[010010011010]

In response to the article asking should race incidents be penalised - my opinion is NO. They're called racing incidents for a reason. That is unless in schumachers case he was being a twat in hungary - thats right to penalise. Penaltys should be only given out beacuse of lack of respect for others or rules, not due to lack of control over your car. Ok maybe they could penalise vettle for lack of judgement given the damp track, but thats a really iffy call. Let 'em race!

(this was a particularly hard post for me considering im not hugely fond of vettle this season and a long time schumacher fan )

[andrew]

This race was great if you ask me. Why? Because Hamilton won. Later

fixed

I've been misquoted. I should sue you for slander.

May I offer my services as a witness?

[Poleman]

Yeah let them race,but what if Vettel or any Vettel is let loose in the track and starting wiping cars out?Able to control his car or not thats not the judges problem,if he isnt able to control the car then he shouldnt be racing at all.Rules are clear about causing an accident and Vettel did cause one either his fault or not and as soon he was able to survive the colision then he handed the penalty...Fair justice.

[ringo]

This race was good, wicked driving from Sutil, Petrov, Luizi, and Button.

Button's only problem is his speed. He was too slow today and that what's brought him into trouble with Vettel. Vettel was definitely blazingly quicker. We can see that there is a clear difference between Hamilton and Button's race pace and wet driving confidence.
I'm not blaming Button for the Vettel crash, but he should know that Vettel and Webber are the last guys you want on your gearbox. You should find the pace and get out of there.
His opening laps showed he is defintely top class, jumping up to third then second, however pace and agression is his main weakness. His defense on Vettel was ok still.

Oh yeah I can't leave out shumacher! He was definitely a spa specialist today, only mlosing out on his teammate on the restart. The Mercedes ran pretty well, better than expected, thought the FI seem to be making better use of the engines power.

[andrew]

I liked Schumachers comments about loosing efficiency in his post race interview. In 95 he passed 16 cars, in 2010 he only passed 14.

[Morteza]

Schumacher did pretty well. I wonder why Mercedes cars are so slow on straights? They're the slowest of Mercedes-powered cars. Very good race from Hamilton, Webber and Sutil. Kubica's mistake caused him the 2nd but still he was drove really well. Alonso wasn't doing well at all and Massa did pretty much better than him.
A pity for Rubens as his 300th race was a DNF

[ringo]

Shumi still has it, when he feels confident it seems. I wonder what he'll do in brazil and suzuka?
Anyhow, good race from him and we saw some of the twiddling he usually does on the steering wheels from the ferrari days.

Baby Shumi now, the penalty was deserved. He punctured Button's radiator, when it wasn't necessary. He was too desperate to stay on track and opted to counter steer in Button's direction, hoping button would have been through the turn.
It would have been better if he ran wide like everyone did on the second lap.

[manchild]

Shame, it wasn't wet enough for Randy Mandy

[tok-tokkie]

This race was good, wicked driving from Sutil, Petrov, Luizi, and Button.

Button's only problem is his speed. He was too slow today and that what's brought him into trouble with Vettel. Vettel was definitely blazingly quicker. We can see that there is a clear difference between Hamilton and Button's race pace and wet driving confidence.
I'm not blaming Button for the Vettel crash, but he should know that Vettel and Webber are the last guys you want on your gearbox. You should find the pace and get out of there.
His opening laps showed he is defintely top class, jumping up to third then second, however pace and agression is his main weakness. His defense on Vettel was ok still.

Oh yeah I can't leave out shumacher! He was definitely a spa specialist today, only mlosing out on his teammate on the restart. The Mercedes ran pretty well, better than expected, thought the FI seem to be making better use of the engines power.

It seems like you did not have the BBC commentary. There was damage to Button's front wing so his car was badly balanced & he had to jack on full flap & adjust the diff settings to improve it as much as possible. Hence he was slow & was pleased with how he was coping & managing to keep Vettel behind. Vettel was unable to overtake a damaged McLaren. It is apparent to me that Red Bull have had to make changes to comply with the new tests and their race pace has been affected. McLaren have got their exhaust blown diffuser to work - could clearly hear it during the race & Martin Brundle (BBC commentator) pointed it out.

[WhiteBlue]

Vettel threw his race away as I said earlier and sadly also finished Button's. In his post race comment he said that he braked while his car was still unsettled from a bump and Horner said he probably did not expect Button to brake as early as he did. It was a racing acccident and he got a heavy penalty for taking out Button in his impatience. I don't think the way some people here come down on Seb is entirely fair. Sure, he made a mistake but it was a mistake in tricky conditions made out of racing ambition. Barrichello with 300 starts made a similar mistake and Alonso also threw it away with vastly more experience. Alonso was just lucky that his mistake did not take out someone else. Hamilton almost threw it away and got lucky to not hit a barrier.

[ESPImperium]

Concerning the incident between cars no. 8 and cars no. 9 on Lap 1 at Turn 19, the Stewards of the
Meeting, having heard from both drivers, having viewed the video evidence and having taken into account
the sudden change in weather and track conditions, consider it to be a racing incident and therefore
decide to take no further action.

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1 ... ent-46.pdf

The Stewards of the Meeting, having examined the video evidence of the incident at Turns 18/19 on Lap
1, decide to take no further action in relation to cars leaving the track.

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre/f1 ... ent-42.pdf

Discression was the better part of valour on those ones.