2012 Belgian Grand Prix - Spa

[beelsebob]

No not really. I don´t mean to hate on your parade here but you just seemed like you had a system.

Where by "system" you mean "I applied a little bit of logic"... Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't go down to the betting shop and put my house on this... Hell, I wouldn't put £10 on it either, but that doesn't mean that there's 0 value in applying logic and past results to speculation about what might happen in the future. It sure is a lot more interesting that going "it's all random, lets guess blindly"...

[mod edit] Anyway, that's where I was coming from, no need to get heated about it. Let's agree to disagree [/mod edit]

[Richard]

What a way to waste precious brain guys

Indeed. Brain preservation measures have been put in place.

[MikeFromCanada]

Gotta expect this a bit. 5 weeks with no racing will make any F1 fan go nuts!

I'll try and shift the attention a bit. Many people will say that Spa is one of the better (if not the best) circuit on the calender. Is it the track layout? The weather? The overtaking opportunities?

Frankly I wouldn't say the circuit is the ultimate "test" and showcase of a Formula 1 car's abilities. However, at the same time, a circuit which does (such as Catalunya) tends to be a high downforce snooze-fest.

[beelsebob]

Gotta expect this a bit. 5 weeks with no racing will make any F1 fan go nuts!

I'll try and shift the attention a bit. Many people will say that Spa is one of the better (if not the best) circuit on the calender. Is it the track layout? The weather? The overtaking opportunities?

Frankly I wouldn't say the circuit is the ultimate "test" and showcase of a Formula 1 car's abilities. However, at the same time, a circuit which does (such as Catalunya) tends to be a high downforce snooze-fest.

I think it's because
1) The track has history
2) The track has more than one good overtaking opportunity (into Malmedy, Pouhon, Fanges, the bus stop and La Source)
3) The track does push F1 cars to the limit in a number of ways (Eau Rouge/Radion in the wet or under full fuel loads, pouhon)
4) The weather is massively unpredictable
5) Aggressive racers always seem to come to the top here

[Neno]

Gotta expect this a bit. 5 weeks with no racing will make any F1 fan go nuts!

I'll try and shift the attention a bit. Many people will say that Spa is one of the better (if not the best) circuit on the calender. Is it the track layout? The weather? The overtaking opportunities?

Frankly I wouldn't say the circuit is the ultimate "test" and showcase of a Formula 1 car's abilities. However, at the same time, a circuit which does (such as Catalunya) tends to be a high downforce snooze-fest.

Everything what you said is Spa, because of that is best circuit on the calendar. You rarely see long tracks, with high altitude, in forrest, with layout soo good that every cm on her is overtaking zone, and with unpredictable weather (at one end of track is sunny, at second is raining). Today we see many unatural tracks, like Singapore, or Bahrein, because that tracks dont have some natural flow of circuit, is how would i say "artificial", etc. I dont like that. I'l rather watch Imola then Singapore, Spa then Bahrein, etc..

[beelsebob]

Gotta expect this a bit. 5 weeks with no racing will make any F1 fan go nuts!

I'll try and shift the attention a bit. Many people will say that Spa is one of the better (if not the best) circuit on the calender. Is it the track layout? The weather? The overtaking opportunities?

Frankly I wouldn't say the circuit is the ultimate "test" and showcase of a Formula 1 car's abilities. However, at the same time, a circuit which does (such as Catalunya) tends to be a high downforce snooze-fest.

Everything what you said is Spa, because of that is best circuit on the calendar. You rarely see long tracks, with high altitude, in forrest, with layout soo good that every cm on her is overtaking zone, and with unpredictable weather (at one end of track is sunny, at second is raining). Today we see many unatural tracks, like Singapore, or Bahrein, because that tracks dont have some natural flow of circuit, is how would i say "artificial", etc. I dont like that. I'l rather watch Imola then Singapore, Spa then Bahrein, etc..

Being unnatural certainly I think is a large part of what I dislike about these circuits. Tilke seems to like going out of his way to make highly "technical" circuits, with strange things like off-camber mid-corner breaking zones. Spa just flows like a river from one corner into the next, it doesn't really have any super nasty technical moments, and that leaves the drivers free to concentrate on getting all kinds of other things (like overtaking) right.

[SeijaKessen]

Gotta expect this a bit. 5 weeks with no racing will make any F1 fan go nuts!

I'll try and shift the attention a bit. Many people will say that Spa is one of the better (if not the best) circuit on the calender. Is it the track layout? The weather? The overtaking opportunities?

Frankly I wouldn't say the circuit is the ultimate "test" and showcase of a Formula 1 car's abilities. However, at the same time, a circuit which does (such as Catalunya) tends to be a high downforce snooze-fest.

Everything what you said is Spa, because of that is best circuit on the calendar. You rarely see long tracks, with high altitude, in forrest, with layout soo good that every cm on her is overtaking zone, and with unpredictable weather (at one end of track is sunny, at second is raining). Today we see many unatural tracks, like Singapore, or Bahrein, because that tracks dont have some natural flow of circuit, is how would i say "artificial", etc. I dont like that. I'l rather watch Imola then Singapore, Spa then Bahrein, etc..

Being unnatural certainly I think is a large part of what I dislike about these circuits. Tilke seems to like going out of his way to make highly "technical" circuits, with strange things like off-camber mid-corner breaking zones. Spa just flows like a river from one corner into the next, it doesn't really have any super nasty technical moments, and that leaves the drivers free to concentrate on getting all kinds of other things (like overtaking) right.

I agree Bob.

I would be quite interested in new tracks if they actually had any logical design behind them; flow.

The technical circuits are best left to street circuits where out of necessity rather than choice, you are going to have a lot of technical corners.

Road circuits should have more flow to them since you are no longer hampered by the obvious things like buildings, public roads, etc.

[f1316]

Agree with all of this, just a shame they messed with the bus stop! Why was that done again?

[raymondu999]

Agree with all of this, just a shame they messed with the bus stop! Why was that done again?

The circuit was making other circuits look bad

[beelsebob]

IIRC the reasoning was to give a safer entry to the new pit lane they wanted the right left to be tighter, so the cars were slower through it.

Also, the left right meant that if someone messed up the breaking zone they came flying straight through someone going into the pits, so it wasn't enormously sane.

[SeijaKessen]

Agree with all of this, just a shame they messed with the bus stop! Why was that done again?

The circuit was making other circuits look bad

The Bus Stop chicane was quite fantastic.

In lesser race series, it was quite fun to see drivers totally botch the braking zone and spin off right past the entrance to it.

It was a hell of a challenge though doing 200MPH and then suddenly have a massive braking zone into an inclined turn.

[siskue2005]

very true, the old bus stop was pure awesomeness!
but again, i will settle for an ordinary bus stop chicane than having no race at all.
The reason they changed that part was Bernie wanted better facility for their corporate VIPs, so they had to redo that area

[Jackles-UK]

I think another of the reasons for Spa's fantastic spectacle is the fact that the set-ups are almost in juxtaposititon. The long straights mean teams tend to go for a lower downforce set-up but there are definitely areas where high speed grip would be crucial to gaining really fast lap times. Almost all of sector 2 is fast & flowing, through Les Combes down to Pouhon especially.

I think that the lack of downforce makes the cars more unpredictable than is usual and as such: A) rewards aggressive drivers who can really wrestle the car through the bends; Hamilton has gone well here for example and B) allows for bags of overtaking opportunities!

The cars at Spa tend to resemble what it was like watching races in years past with downforce playing second fiddle to a drivers skill and ability to think and battle it out at 200+mph (which is so much more appealing than just watching the lead car disappear into the horizon because the dirty air slowing everyone else behind down - Valencia i'm looking at you!!). Pure racing ... albeit with DRS!

[HVS5b]

Carlsberg clearly do produce race tracks! The only way this far-too-long summer break is bearable is because we are off to Spa next.
Would love to see Kimi nail this one but my fantasy team requires McLaren to perform...I'll be happy with either outcome.
Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up!

[f1316]

IIRC the reasoning was to give a safer entry to the new pit lane they wanted the right left to be tighter, so the cars were slower through it.

Also, the left right meant that if someone messed up the breaking zone they came flying straight through someone going into the pits, so it wasn't enormously sane.

Ah yes, that rings a bell and does make some sense. Still, one might think changing the pits rather than the track would be the way to go, but perhaps that's more the view of the purist (who is never likely to be in the VIP area anyway )

Was a great corner though. The famous 1998 race had some nice moments between there and the first corner between Trulli, Button and Schumacher - I remember Button going the wrong way around Trulli and Michael taking advantage to nip by.

What was good is that the lap had an overtaking counterpoint to the, perhaps more obvious, spot at Les Combes. So both the start and the end of the lap had a lot of overtaking interest.