On August 24, after a long break, the Belgian Formula 1 Grand Prix was held at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo took his second straight victory of the season. However, the most highly publicised event was the conflict between two Mercedes drivers, which happened in the beginning of the race.
Teams had a three-week break to recharge their energies and make a fresh start in this season’s tournament. The 2014 Formula 1 championship was 11 races old before the Belgian Grand Prix.
The drivers had the “Elbe Day” at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. It was built in 1925 and was first used for the inaugural Belgian Grand Prix. At the moment, the track is 7,004 m long. The total number of turns is 21. By the way, back in 1950 the length of the track was 14 km! However, in spite of reducing the distance, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is still one of the most visually inspiring circuits.
Fortunately, the weather was nice, though rains make races even more unpredictable. It’s a high-speed track and the current lap record belongs to Formula 1 driver Kimi Räikkönen — his time was 1:45,994.
“Silver Arrow” drivers Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton topped the sheets in qualifying. Weather conditions were not favourable. A strong wind arose and a hailstorm began. The drivers had to wait out the bad weather and continued qualifying on a drying track. At first, best time was set by Lewis — 2:06.609; however, Nico was able to demonstrate an even better result — 2:05.591: “Car handling was getting better closer to the end of qualifying and that is why I’m really happy. I’m also a bit surprised that the advantage over other teams was so obvious”.
Vettel (Red Bull) and Alonso (Ferrari) had second row starting positions, while the third row featured Ricciardo (Red Bull) and Bottas (Williams). The Russian driver Daniil Kvyat from Toro Rosso had 11th starting position.
Caterham had a driver replacement before the race in Belgium. André Lotterer, a three-times winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, replaced Kamui Kobayashi. He managed to outperform his teammate Marcus Ericsson in qualifying; however, both Caterham drivers were last on the starting grid.
Time for the race. Fernando Alonso suffered technical problems right on the formation lap — his car would not start. Team’s mechanics had to stay near the car to fix the problems, which was followed by a 5-second stop and go penalty: “Today my race started on the back foot as the car did not fire up and we had to use another battery”.
Rosberg was attacked right on the start; he was overtaken by Hamilton and Vettel.
On lap 2, the angry Rosberg decided to take revenge on his teammate and get back to the first position by any means. As a result, Rosberg's front wing clipped Hamilton's left rear tyre.
Lewis suffered an instant puncture and had to limp back to the pits for a tyre change: “I gave Nico plenty of space, took the corner like I usually do and suddenly felt a big hit from behind. There was nothing I could do about it and that was effectively my race over”.
Lotterer and Maldonado (Lotus) dropped out of contention due to powertrain issues. However, Lotterer wasn’t upset that much: “I didn't even get the chance to sweat unfortunately… It's a shame, but I am pleased with my race weekend — I made no mistakes and did a reasonably good job. Of course it would've been fantastic to finish the race and do a whole Grand Prix, but it's still been an amazing weekend. I can go home happy even though it didn't really end the way I would've liked it to.”
In the meantime, Ricciardo was able to overtake Alonso and made his way into third position. After the tyre change, Rosberg could not catch up with Vettel and break through to third position. His race car was uncompetitive on long straights and all his attempts ended up with locked wheels and one more position lost.
Ricciardo was leading the pack. By lap 18, Daniil Kvyat was holding 10th position: “The car handling during the race was good and I was quite pleased that the weather stayed dry”.
Tyre changes led to constant position changes on the track; however, nothing drastic was happening. Grosjean (Lotus) left his car in the pits: “Unfortunately the race was compromised early on, we had to change the nose on the first lap and we picked up some damage later on from debris on the track…”
Lewis Hamilton failed to give his competitors a hard time after returning from the pits. Then he started experiencing even more serious problems. Hamilton began to feel that his engine was losing power: “I wanted to retire the car early — not because I was giving up, but because I couldn't catch the people in front of me and even with a safety car I don't think I would have been able to pass them.”
Lewis started asking the mechanics to bring him in early, however, they insisted he continued racing. He made a few more attempts to retire. But the team’s mechanics were not giving up until they recorded an aerodynamic failure. He dropped out of the race on lap 40 due to underbody damage.
Eventually, Daniel Ricciardo celebrated victory in the Belgian Grand Prix: “There's been a lot of good things about the win today, obviously the last two came from a more aggressive style of race, but today was more calculated and it was nice to win under different circumstances.”
Nico Rosberg was the second to cross the finish line: “That was a tough race. We had the pace to win today but the incident cost us a top result, so I'm really disappointed because for the team it was a bad day. As drivers, we are here to entertain and to show the fans a good time, so our duels are always on the limit. I regret that Lewis and myself touched, but I see it as a racing incident”.
Valtteri Bottas rounded out the podium: “Our pace was solid today and a lot better than in qualifying, with some good battles with the Ferrari's and Red Bull's, and I think third was probably the right result.”
Daniil Kvyat has finally scored championship points; he had a 9th place finish: “I can't wait to get back into the car in two weeks' time when we will be in Monza."
On the podium, Daniel Ricciardo was beaming with delight, as it was his second win in a row this season. At the same time, Nico Rosberg was greeted with boos. There are not many fans of victories at all costs, as they leave a bad aftertaste. It is still unclear, whether Nico is going to be penalised, however, it appears that FIA is not going to interfere with the infighting at Mercedes.
