2012 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa

[marcush.]

Grosjean did an exact duplicate of what he did to schumacher in Monaco just to the other side.
He is not complete unawares of the traffic behind he is doing something really dangerous as in a first step he moves to one side leaving just enough room for another car -making the other driver think he is aware of him and only then does a very harsh manoevre to close that gap -a second move -when the opponent has no more chance to back off as he´s already up the wall-to be this is just trying to kill somebody and as we see by his comments -he has shown not the slightest common sense and any guilt over all incidents so far ...a few years ago Eddie Irvine got a three race ban for much less ...
Grosjean deserved this he was asking for it.

This way around -the yellow cards system -reserve driver contracts raise in attractivity and it does make sense to try to get a seat in teams who have drivers under contract who now and then suffer a bit of brain fade...

[turbof1]

Good race

Don't understand why 2009 cars could lap in 1:44:503 and 2012 cars with DRS are more than 3 seconds slower
Tires?

Double diffusers and Bridgestone tires.

The track also wasn't properly rubbered in. I do think 2012 cars are faster then 2009 cars. Just that tyres and track conditions are masking the speed.

[stefan_]

It was a bad accident and this race ban is more or less deserved, but the motivation that "He took out several World Champioship condenders" is absolutely stupid. I think Maldonado deserved a race ban as well. If penalties don't teach him a lesson, then he should get much more. But hey, who is set to drive in Maldonado's seat? Look below.

Bottas wants to come from GP3 straight into F1 - that is very bad, that shouldn't be allowed even with the test he does in FP1.
Guys with (a lot of) money but poor understanding or awareness about the consequences of their dangerous maneuvers (random example: losing your head and using your car as a weapon) come into F1 - that is bad.
If you look at GP2 and GP3 there are a lot of guys who make stupid moves just to "prove themselves" and/or are letting me the impression that they have the "I pay to drive in this competition, I do what I want" atitude.

So, good chance for Jerome to give the E20 a spin around Monza. That should be good, at least he has some experience under his belt.

L.E.: So that's why Maldonado had the broken wing. Another one on the list.

[zyphro]

I don't think the fact that he took out WDC contenders was the main reasoning for his ban; it only strengthened the case against him. Fact of the matter is, in 58.3% of races this year, he's been involved in first lap incidents.

Not good enough.

[GrizzleBoy]

While I'm with the FIA acting on Grosjeans behaviour, I am at the same time, completely disgusted.

Why?

What the hell will Maldonado have to do to get a race ban?

Will he actually have to keep crashing into people and have a really serious accident like today before they actually treat him with any seriousness as they've done with Grosjean?

Are they waiting for that freak accident before they really throw the book at him?

[ESPImperium]

Good race

Don't understand why 2009 cars could lap in 1:44:503 and 2012 cars with DRS are more than 3 seconds slower
Tires?

Double diffusers and Bridgestone tires.

The track also wasn't properly rubbered in. I do think 2012 cars are faster then 2009 cars. Just that tyres and track conditions are masking the speed.

Refuelling as well, carrying 45-65Kg less fuel at the start will always make the cars faster at the start of the race, but mostly the DDDs and legendary Bridgestone Potenzas will give a better lap time; one last thing, the 2009 cars were 605Kg and the 2012 cars are 640Kg. Theese Pirellis and the cars having less overall weight has a effect. Id recon bolt on the EBDs and DDDs with refuelling and the Bridgestones you could do Spa in a sub 100 second lap.

[lebesset]

I think the start was badly executed by Charlie. It was a very long red light following a very long grid formation period. The jump start and bad getaways were in part down to this. The jump start and bad getaways in turn led to some other eejits trying too hard to take advantage and a very uneven getaway.

Race bans have been too long in coming.

I thought charlie turned the lights on when signalled from the back of the grid that everyone is in place ; computer then provides a randon start

[mnmracer]

Also hasn't Grosjean been involved in 7 first lap incidents? If so, the decision is wholly justified.

It's been 6 incidents (not 7), of which only 3 were clearly his fault.
Doesn't excuse him, but no need for poor reporting.

Australia: hit by Maldonado (not RG's fault)
Malaysia: hit Schumacher (RG's fault)
Spain: come-together with Perez (race incident)
Monaco: similair start-crash, hit Schumacher (RG's fault)
Britain: diResta clips Grosjean's win (not RG's fault)
Belgium: caused start-crash (RG's fault)

[turbof1]

Refuelling as well, carrying 45-65Kg less fuel at the start will always make the cars faster at the start of the race, but mostly the DDDs and legendary Bridgestone Potenzas will give a better lap time; one last thing, the 2009 cars were 605Kg and the 2012 cars are 640Kg. Theese Pirellis and the cars having less overall weight has a effect. Id recon bolt on the EBDs and DDDs with refuelling and the Bridgestones you could do Spa in a sub 100 second lap.

I think we are talking about raw qualy pace, in which cars aren't having the fuel loads in them for the races. You do make unintentionally a good point: back in 2009 cars in Q3 were forced to start the race with fuel loads for the first stint in the race.

[QLDriver]

In Grosjean's defence; as I recall, in the incident in Monaco, Alonso moved left to try and pass Hamilton, and Grosjean overreacted to that move by a few feet, thereby hitting Schumacher.

Today he was all by himself to the left of Hamilton and just closed the gap to nothing.

[astracrazy]

I think the start was badly executed by Charlie. It was a very long red light following a very long grid formation period. The jump start and bad getaways were in part down to this. The jump start and bad getaways in turn led to some other eejits trying too hard to take advantage and a very uneven getaway.

Race bans have been too long in coming.

what?

He has no control of the red lights. When the green flag is waved at the back he presses a button to start the sequence. How long the lights stay on for is purely random. all he can do is abort (like Hungary)

Once all the cars have come to a halt on the grid, and the course car and medical cars are also in position further back, the start sequence is initiated by the race controller. Green lights are no longer used to indicate the start of a race, instead once the red lights are extinguished (there is a pre-determined random time delay of between 4 and 14 seconds - over which the race controller has no control - between the lights coming on and the last one going out) the race is underway.

[raymondu999]

Actually that's a weird thing on the lights. Looking back to last year - it was either the Hungarian or German grand prix - and the delay from 5 red lights to 0 red lights was just about the same at every race that weekend - be it GP3, GP2, etc.

[stefan_]

Maldonado actually said that the clutch leiver slid off his hand I thought it was a joke made around here.

[Traction]

Also hasn't Grosjean been involved in 7 first lap incidents? If so, the decision is wholly justified.

It's been 6 incidents (not 7), of which only 3 were clearly his fault.
Doesn't excuse him, but no need for poor reporting.

Australia: hit by Maldonado (not RG's fault)
Malaysia: hit Schumacher (RG's fault)
Spain: come-together with Perez (race incident)
Monaco: similair start-crash, hit Schumacher (RG's fault)
Britain: diResta clips Grosjean's win (not RG's fault)
Belgium: caused start-crash (RG's fault)

The most sensible post since the RG incident. Thank you.

Btw..it would be interesting to see how many other drivers have caused three or more crashes.

[wesley123]

The most sensible post since the RG incident. Thank you.

Btw..it would be interesting to see how many other drivers have caused three or more crashes.

Maldonado