2017 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa Francorchamps, 25-27 August

[Vanja #66]

First you say Perez caused it and then you blame Ocon? Both incidents at Spa in my opinion were caused by Perez's ego.

I wrote that Ocon's rage caused it, not Perez. Perez was pulled in first for tyre swap because of his penalty, this didn't sit right with Ocon and he was furious, wanted to re-pass Perez asap.

[ThumbsUp]

Interesting. Does anyone have a link to that part, i remember watching it live and thinking it was odd, but now id like to see it again but cant find anything online

Because the embedded video doens't work, here the link to the full race, it's around the 1.37.44 in the vid that they are in the room when Vettel got told something by the FIA guy. Cheers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHBWkNCBrN4

[Schuttelberg]

First you say Perez caused it and then you blame Ocon? Both incidents at Spa in my opinion were caused by Perez's ego.

I wrote that Ocon's rage caused it, not Perez. Perez was pulled in first for tyre swap because of his penalty, this didn't sit right with Ocon and he was furious, wanted to re-pass Perez asap.

I think rage is a pretty poor choice of words. I saw the rerun of the grand prix today and I saw the way Checo was moving on the straight before Les Combes (I suppose that's how it's spelt) and he only indulged in this weaving and cutting across against Ocon. The bottom line simply is that he was in the wrong on both occasions. May be Ocon could have bided his time, but that doesn't make Perez right.

[Juzh]

On the subject of hamilton supposedly outfoxing vettel at the restart.

Here's an onboard from the start of the race where vettel gets the most slipstream you could possibly get of another car, much further down the kemmel straight. But as soon as he pulls to the left he immediatly starts to fall back.

https://streamable.com/4ifqh

Bottom line: Vettel was never going to overtake hamilton on the straight in spa because he had no chance whatsoever, lifting shenanigans by hamilton or not - no difference.

[NathanOlder]

How did anyone manage to pass Bottas ?? Im sure I saw a Red Bull and Ferrari pass him on a straight. Maybe it was just down to Kimi and Danny doing a better job ?

[Phil]

It's definitely Ocon's rage for not being taken in for tyre swap before Perez that caused this. In general this year with the two of them, Ocon is the one who attacks when it's not possible... Perez was in front, he had the racing line and Ocon went in there just like he did at the beginning of the race. If that first lap was hectic and hard racing, this second contact is Ocon's own doing.

First you say Perez caused it and then you blame Ocon? Both incidents at Spa in my opinion were caused by Perez's ego.

After having thought about this for a while, I think I'm actually going to jump in and defend Perez. Yes, he knew Ocon was there, yes, he could have left space. But in all fairness, it was stupid of Ocon to attempt a move there. IMO the race start incident showed what can happen if you do (with 3 cars along side heading for a narrower stretch of road).

Perez's optimal line for Eau Rouge was to head to the right. Perhaps he knew Ocon was there and wanted to "school" him. Either way, if Ocon had just waited a little and stayed within Perez, he would have most likely got him after Eau Rouge. It just seemed... well, a bit "hot headed" to attempt the pass there.

Yes, Perez was slightly compromised coming out of La Source, but as dangerous as Eau Rouge is... I just think it would have been very ambitious either way.

[foxmulder_ms]

Interesting. Does anyone have a link to that part, i remember watching it live and thinking it was odd, but now id like to see it again but cant find anything online

Because the embedded video doens't work, here the link to the full race, it's around the 1.37.44 in the vid that they are in the room when Vettel got told something by the FIA guy. Cheers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHBWkNCBrN4

He is just annoyed. He is not troubled. He is like "why me?"

[F1NAC]

Interesting. Does anyone have a link to that part, i remember watching it live and thinking it was odd, but now id like to see it again but cant find anything online

Because the embedded video doens't work, here the link to the full race, it's around the 1.37.44 in the vid that they are in the room when Vettel got told something by the FIA guy. Cheers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHBWkNCBrN4

He is just annoyed. He is not troubled. He is like "why me?"

i think Will Buxton mentioned somewhere that they were asking him to provide sample for doping test.

[TAG]

After having thought about this for a while, I think I'm actually going to jump in and defend Perez. s Eau Rouge is... I just think it would have been very ambitious either way.

Perez is the senior driver at FI. He's troubled by Ocon, and worse instead of raising his game, he's lowering it to keep Ocon in his pace so to speak. It's not about one event, it's been multiples,it's been systemic, they've been "spoken" to and it shows poor leadership on track on his part. Perez has the lead role, IMO he's failing at it.

I don't think you're being unfair int he technical analysis but the whole thing was compromised by Perez from the start, and that's the problem.

Not the kind of performances you want teams to see if they're going to keep an eye out for him come contract renewal time. He's put himself in a situation where he can only lose, very little to gain otherwise. The team is paying the price. He's selfish, but no great driver isn't. That's not the problem, he's also using dirty tactics which IMO he's not earned the right to use. That's his biggest failing.

[Just_a_fan]

On the subject of hamilton supposedly outfoxing vettel at the restart.

Here's an onboard from the start of the race where vettel gets the most slipstream you could possibly get of another car, much further down the kemmel straight. But as soon as he pulls to the left he immediatly starts to fall back.

https://streamable.com/4ifqh

Bottom line: Vettel was never going to overtake hamilton on the straight in spa because he had no chance whatsoever, lifting shenanigans by hamilton or not - no difference.

Different situation. In the restart, Vettel would have been in a better run had he not had to back off slightly up to Raidillon.

But, to keep banging your favourite drum, yes Mercedes did a better job of making a PU than anyone else. I remember Enzo's words with a smile at this stage...

[TAG]

On the subject of hamilton supposedly outfoxing vettel at the restart.

Bottom line: Vettel was never going to overtake hamilton on the straight in spa because he had no chance whatsoever, lifting shenanigans by hamilton or not - no difference.

Vettel himself said he'd do it differently, amazing you think otherwise.

[marvin78]

He did suggest that Vettel would not have passed HAM, even if there was no lifting by Hamilton or Vettel doing it differently. Concidering the huge Mercedes advantage on the PU side he may probably be right. We don't know.

[TAG]

He did suggest that Vettel would not have passed HAM, even if there was no lifting by Hamilton or Vettel doing it differently. Concidering the huge Mercedes advantage on the PU side he may probably be right. We don't know.

This huge PU advantage? I've seen a lot of discussion just a few pages back as to how the tow would have added .05 and it being all Vettel beyond that. I'm just left scratching my head by the comments here sometimes because they seem to argue both sides of the coin. So if it was all Vettel and there's nothing between the cars, and the US compound was shown to have 1.4 to 1.6 second advantage on Friday, why would Vettel never have been able to overtake?

Scratching my head... know what I mean?

[Phil]

Personally, I think Ferrari being competitive was a little exaggerated due to a few factors:

- Mercedes traded-off around 0.2s of laptime for a better top-speed to make them less vulnerable.
- They gambled everything to get a front-row start (to the point they used an extra set of US in Q2)

Last but not least one of the biggest factors (IMO):

- Mercedes is still hard on the tires; the more soft the compound, the more pronounced it is

This last point is quite crucial in my opinion. On one hand, Mercedes was fortunate that Pirelli set relatively high tire pressures (which suits them more than the reverse). On the other hand the track is extremely long and there were indications that teams were struggling to maintain best tire performance over the entire lap when pushed to far in the first part of the track.

I think this led to the point that Mercedes seemed less dominant than what was expected. I think the car was quite limited to the performance they were able to extract from the tires. Which is why they were happy to go for the soft tire because it suited the car better and is more durable, even under a lot of load, where as the US perhaps needed to be managed more carefully in risk of not overheating them.

Add these factors together and I think we end up with the picture that it seemed Ferrari had the quicker package for Spa. Come Monza, I think we might see a very dominant Mercedes again, which some people will put down to the oil-regs and Mercedes avoiding them (no doubt that will add to it too).

[TAG]

They acknowledged though that putting Bottas on the Soft was a mistake. He'd not have lost the position to both Kimi and Ricciardo so it's not all linear. Hamilton had to defend against Vettel in a car that is not just competitive but is challenging for a championship. To say that Vettel was never going to overtake is simply wrong. If anything it showed how complacent Vettel is in nursing his lead. The US tires were the choice, the only reason Mercedes didn't put it on is because they didn't have them. Regardless of where the cars were relative to their performance, the 1.4 to 1.6 second pace difference shown on Friday more that made up for the few tenths one way or another. Additionally, Hamilton put in his fastest times in sector two, not in the straights. That where the real difference was.