Round 12 - Spa - F1 is back.

Yes Ladies and Gentlemen I am back with a blog that will end up being only one day behind schedule but will still be posted before the practice sessions which is when I promised this to be. Coming up this weekend is undoubtedly one of the jewels in the F1 crown: The 2011 Belgian Prix at the legendarily fast and demanding Circuit de Spa Francorchamps for round 12 of the 2011 Formula One World Championship

Before I continue I am making a point not to discuss the television rights of the sport in this country. This is because many points and been hammered and counter hammered home by the actual people who about the sport from the inside the sport and my opinion would be perhaps useless as well as quite frankly not relevant as someone who has a Sky Box and will be able to watch every race from 2012 onwards.

Back to the racing the championship, as you probably well know, is well in Sebastian Vettel's court seeing as he has an 85 point lead over his win-less teammate Webber who is being closely courted by Hamilton, Alonso and Button.

The previous race was a race which on raw pace was quite frankly dominated by the dry weather pace of Hamilton and the mixed weather confidence of race winner Button who was followed home by Vettel, Alonso (despite at least 3 off track moments), Hamilton (after a spin, wrong tire choice, drive through and an epic pass on Webber) and Webber to round the top 5 off.

The first major point of interest which I shall talk about is something i mentioned in my previous blog involving the championship leading Red Bull team:

The Renault powed RB7 has cured it's reliability problems so it will most definitely finish the races but as the last two races have proved in particular it appears to not have the same utterly dominant pace that it had at the start of the season. It was a brilliant piece of Adrian Newey design which started the season crushing all before it and is now a car that has recently struggled to get onto the podium thanks to the awesome form of both Mclaren drivers and Alonso in the Ferrari.

I have been thinking, looking at the car and the thought that has sprung to my mind on multiple occasions is that it has perhaps reached a technological peak that any developments that can go on the car will be fewer and further between. That is not the fault of Adrian Newey, if anything it shows how he is able to design a fast car without any on track testing. The problem is at this point in season it seems that there is not much done that can make it faster than it is and it gives Mclaren and Ferrari some hope of catching and properly overhauling Red Bull before the end of the season.

There is an equal but opposite problem going on a Ferrari. They are going to stop develop their F150 Italia this coming months. It was car that flattered to deceive in the first few races and then went on to battle right at the head of field, taking it's first win of the season at Silverstone. It has come on leaps and bounds and has given Alonso a shot at the third championship which would put him automatically into the list of all time greats which includes names like Fangio, Piquet and Senna so why they are looking at starting work on the 2012 car is beyond me.

This has happened more than once, most recently in 2008 when Robert Kubica was right in the championship hunt with BMW Sauber and he went down from a potential champion to 4th place behind a mostly lackluster Kimi Raikonnen in that years standings because BMW put their efforts into designing the 2009 challenger which turned out to be a pig of a car for the most part. For competition sake I can only hope the last update they put on that Ferrari is a damn good one.

In other news:

There has been a ban on the Drag Reduction System being used through the famously flat out and daunting Eau Rouge and Radillon corners. (or turns 2 and 3 if this track was in Asia). While it would have been absolutely awesome to see the Red Bull's/Ferrari's/Mclaren's taking it flat out in qualifying with the wing open, sliding up the steep slope at 190+ mph I can see why it has been done. There are not only the issues of some of the cars not having enough mechanical grip to pull it off but some of the drivers not being physically able to do it. I mentioned in my last blog about D'Ambrosio being a driver I worry is going to have a huge accident. This is just the sort of measure that save us the fans from seeing the scary sight of a car barrel rolling on the tarmac run off areas.

HRT have amazingly confirmed a semblance of financial security! They have not come out and said they are as rich as Ferrari or the old Toyota or BMW teams but they have said fairly categorically said that they are solvent enough for the grid to be worried about their future participation. While this is often seen as good news because of the car's improved performance and my personal want of seeing as many cars on the grid as possible I would be inclined to take this with a pinch of salt especially considering some of the things that team owner Colin Kolles has said, which have included threatening to protest the results of the Monaco Grand Prix due to not having an exhaust blown diffuser, off throttle or otherwise.

Michael Schumacher officially celebrates 20 years since his Formula One Debut at this very track. In 1991 he shocked the world but putting the pretty and pretty awful 1991 Jordan 7th on the grid in a field of top experienced drivers that included Senna, Prost and driver steward for this weekend Nigel Mansell. He would win the race the following year defeating a dominant Nigel Mansell in the all conquering Adrian Newey designed Williams FW14B. He has the longest gap between his debut and his currently last race in F1 of any driver. Not even Ricardo Patrese or Rubens Barrichello (who has completed more races) have had such long spanning careers and this fact alone, like Barrichello's 300th Grand Prix at this track last year is a fact that is worthy of congratulations as is a mark of the fitness of the man.

There another driver change this year: Bruno Senna, previous HRT driver and nephew of the great man Aryton is replacing Nick 'MY CAR IS ON FIRE!' Heidfeld in the Renault team for the rest of the season (even though they apparently can only say for the next two races for legal reasons) making him the 28th driver that has competed in a race this season.

Senna could well have already been a world champion for all we know: He was snubbed from the 2009 Brawn in favor of the experience that Rubens Barrichello brought to the table. For all we know he could have been even faster in the Brawn than eventual Champion Button was and potentially beaten even Jenson to be champion. The HRT told us nothing about how good or otherwise this Senna could be. I for one am just glad that we get to see the Senna name in what has blatantly been designed to look a John Player Special liveried Lotus (depending on how you name the cars). That will be such an evocative sight if we ever get to witness him through the lens of an onboard camera.

Now onto the features of this race:

Spa is well known for having both high speed and high downforce elements so it is going to be practically impossible for any one car to be fastest on any one sector of the track in qualifying or the race.

Mclaren will probably be mighty in the first and third sectors thanks to the Mercedes engine, a good DRS system and the best/most reliable KERS system in the field whilst Red Bull will most likely be brilliant in the middle sector thanks to downforce needed in the great section involving Pouhon and the following Campus chicaine. Ferrari will fill their seemingly usual position of being second best everywhere and possibly being able to produce the all round best lap time. However what can not be ruled is the fast starting Mercedes Benz cars of Schumacher and Rosberg getting a good result down purely to the outrageous grunt of that engine and the ability of their DRS system.

The softs and mediums are the two dry weather tire compounds being brought to this race and the following race in Monza. The tire degredation of the Pirelli's is going to be down to something as simple but important as how each of the teams set up their suspensions and brake pressures to handle the fast bends of Eau Rouge, Pouhon and the mighty Stavelot and Blanchimont corners at the end of the lap.

The weather will almost certainly play a part. With the track being a spaced as it is with it's huge straights and long shallow angle corners through the Ardennes Forest it is almost expected that at some point one part of the circuit will be soaking wet and the other half would be bone dry. Last year it caught out the entire field into the Bus Stop chicane and the end of the lap and particularly race winner Hamilton and championship protagonist Alonso after the Les Combes chicane.

Now after many words which most of you may or may not have read here comes yet another probably incorrect top ten prediction for the Belgian Grand Prix:

1. Hamilton
2. Alonso
3. Button
4. Vettel
5. Rosberg
6. Sutil
7. Kobayashi
8. Schuamcher
9. Di Resta
10. Senna

Retirements: Webber, D'Ambrosio, Trulli, Liuzzi

Thanks if you made it this far. See you on the Monday after the race.

Nick.