[Official] Belgian Grand Prix 2016: Grand Prix Weekend Thread

[GT6]

Well a great race pity about all the trouble in the first few laps but some great performances

[Aysedasi]

Originally Posted by Robert

Rosberg not very popular here?

He did what he needed (and was expected) to do. No problem there. Max was optimistic, as there wasn't any track (only kerb) where he dived, but I didn't see him touch anyone, rather he was touched by Raikkonen - wasn't he? (Having said that, Kimi didn't really have anywhere else to go thanks to Vettel). Mind you, Max wasn't the only one to be almost fully on the kerbs on that first turn on lap 1.

[chillibowl]

kind of funny how the 2 cars with the engine penalties had the best races. im not sure how best to handle it.

the many retirements helped but at this point of the season, is a fresh engine a bigger advantage over the rest of the grid relative to the grid penalty meant to off set it?

that LH now has a pool of unused engines feels wrong.

[chillibowl]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Regarding Magnussen's crash. That was scary. Notice how the cockpit head protection bumper popped off mid crash.

Richard

yeah that was surprising that it came out like that.

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by Born Racer

Verstappen was instinctive but a bit too optimistic in my opinion.

Yes. If he hadn't hit Raikkonen, he would have hit someone else. Poor old Kimi: he didn't stand a chance with those two coming at him.

After the first corner shambles, some of Verstappen's defensive moves were getting pretty near-the-knuckle too. I doubt he's making many friends in the paddock at the moment. Someone is going to have to give him a slap sometime soon.

After the various comments about Verstappen's floor damage and Christian Horner saying it was costing him 1.5sec per lap, I looked again at the La Source incident. The contact with Raikkonen was purely his front wing, which then shed various trim tabs and endplate around the outside of the front wheel. So none of that would have caused floor damage. However mid-corner he was straddling a big serrated kerb so it looks to me like the floor damage was entirely self-inflicted.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

We're drifting from the question of grid penalties to the one of team and driver championships. How about dropping the manufacturers championship altogether? It's only significance is the allocation of money in the following year, so that could be changed to one based on the drivers' points, or maybe even a more left-leaning system that didn't continually reward the haves at the expense of the have-nots.

In terms of publicity and marketing, it's far more valuable to Mercedes-Benz (as the current example) to have the World Championship driver on their team, than to be the World Championship team.

Just going back to grid penalties, as Lewis started the race with a drop of 30 places on a grid of 22 drivers, why is he allowed to keep his 3rd place podium finish? If F1 really want these grid penalties to mean anything why aren't they applied to the result?

[cds_uk]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Just going back to grid penalties, as Lewis started the race with a drop of 30 places on a grid of 22 drivers, why is he allowed to keep his 3rd place podium finish? If F1 really want these grid penalties to mean anything why aren't they applied to the result?

I take your point, but if that was the case then McLaren would still be taking grid penalties from last year now.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by cds_uk

I take your point, but if that was the case then McLaren would still be taking grid penalties from last year now.

But that's last season.

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Just going back to grid penalties, as Lewis started the race with a drop of 30 places on a grid of 22 drivers, why is he allowed to keep his 3rd place podium finish? If F1 really want these grid penalties to mean anything why aren't they applied to the result?

Why is he allowed to keep 3rd place? Because that's the way the rules are written. I think just about any variation of these rules will throw up anomalies at some time or other. The suggestion that the "excess grid penalty" should be taken in a time delay at the first pit stop seemed like something worth considering. Actually my main preference would be to delay the driver's start by the relevant amount, but unfortunately that would mean starting after the medical car so it's not a viable solution.

On a different theme, I was struck by the speed of the Red Bulls on Kemmel Straight, or perhaps I should say the "lack of slowness". As a continuation of Red Bull's complaints last year, we have been led to believe that the TAG-Heuer-Renault is still way down on power. That didn't seem to be the case at Spa, so I've just been looking at speed trap figures. In the race, Verstappen was third fastest, just 2km/h slower than the fastest. Ricciardo was another 4km/h down in 10th fastest. They were both much faster than the works Renaults, as well as being faster than the Williams, the McLarens, the Manors, etc.

[cds_uk]

Well, it is fair to say that the rule really does need looking at, in fact the sport on the whole could be doing far better, that being said, it wasn't a bad race today which made a nice change.

[JamesH]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Just going back to grid penalties, as Lewis started the race with a drop of 30 places on a grid of 22 drivers, why is he allowed to keep his 3rd place podium finish? If F1 really want these grid penalties to mean anything why aren't they applied to the result?

Because the grid does not define the final finishing positions. Rather pointless having a race if it did.

Also, a 8 place penalty on the final result would mean he finished 11th (and in other circumstances, with no safety car, even further down the field), which means there would be no point in him even going out or even trying. He'd do a couple of laps, then come in, saving the engine and gearbox. Not very exciting, defining how someone can finish a race, before the race even starts.

[gert]

Just watched the race (recorded it) after I watched the LMS race instead.

Who were they booing on the podium?
I can't see any of the 3 having done something wrong :/
None of the were involved in close battles, let alone accidents.

[TrapezeArtist]

Originally Posted by gert

Who were they booing on the podium?
I can't see any of the 3 having done something wrong :/
None of the were involved in close battles, let alone accidents.

The worst of the booing seemed to be directed at Rosberg. I think he was guilty of not being Verstappen.

[Richard C]

Originally Posted by gert

Who were they booing on the podium?

Nico seemed to indicate during the podium interview that the Verstappen fans were disappointed. I assumed that was in reference to the booing.

Others have said the same, but I also am put off by fans booing someone who is on the podium.

Richard

[Akrapovic]

Leaves a bad taste in the mouth when people boo. Maybe max should've not driven into other cars and he could've been up there like his fans wanted.

[bjohnsonsmith]

Originally Posted by JamesH

Because the grid does not define the final finishing positions. Rather pointless having a race if it did.

Also, a 8 place penalty on the final result would mean he finished 11th (and in other circumstances, with no safety car, even further down the field), which means there would be no point in him even going out or even trying. He'd do a couple of laps, then come in, saving the engine and gearbox. Not very exciting, defining how someone can finish a race, before the race even starts.

Of course the grid doesn't define the final result. I haven't followed racing for all these decades and not learned something, .

These grid penalties seem to be a bit of a nonsense and really need to be looked at. If a penalty is incurred and the driver is to start from say 30th on the grid, though in reality they are starting 2nd to last and yet they finish on the podium and are allowed to keep their finishing position, what's the point of the penalty? It seems to me to be rather absurd and as we saw today can be used to a driver's and team's advantage, as Mercedes and Hamilton did.

[wnut]

Originally Posted by bjohnsonsmith

Of course the grid doesn't define the final result. I haven't followed racing for all these decades and not learned something, .

These grid penalties seem to be a bit of a nonsense and really need to be looked at. If a penalty is incurred and the driver is to start from say 30th on the grid, though in reality they are starting 2nd to last and yet they finish on the podium and are allowed to keep their finishing position, what's the point of the penalty? It seems to me to be rather absurd and as we saw today can be used to a driver's and team's advantage, as Mercedes and Hamilton did.

In the same vein BJ, what is the point of having a racing season when the original design advantage of the Mercedes ensures that we have basically had a two car race every GP weekend for the last two and a half years?

[Lancsbreaker]

"Grid penalties are a bit of a nonsense" - well, of course.

Originally conceived as a measure to reduce costs by limiting teams' expenditure, it has essentially failed spectacularly, so why not just scrap the whole concept......?

[Tourer]

Originally Posted by Lancsbreaker

"Grid penalties are a bit of a nonsense" - well, of course.

Originally conceived as a measure to reduce costs by limiting teams' expenditure, it has essentially failed spectacularly, so why not just scrap the whole concept......?

This weekend really showed that up didn't it? I guess if the penalty was really going to be a deterrent, it would be a time penalty based on the supposed grid position - so in this case both LH and FA would have started from pit exit at a given time penalty after the start lights went out. Still rather messy though and I'm not at all convinced that it would be good for the sport overall.

I absolutely understand the desire to constrain costs where possible and to save teams from themselves but introducing complex and expensive engine (power unit) regulations kind of runs against the cost constraint idea anyway.

I can't help feeling (again) that this is another example of the F1 regs being too convoluted and too intent on avoiding the straightforward - as a result, the original objective is not achieved (again) and the rules simply deliver weird situations like this weekend.

[bella]

Originally Posted by Richard Casto

Nico seemed to indicate during the podium interview that the Verstappen fans were disappointed. I assumed that was in reference to the booing.

Others have said the same, but I also am put off by fans booing someone who is on the podium.

Richard

in fairness, a friend on the scene reports that the cheering drowned out most of the boos in reality.

but it IS weird. during the olympics there was booing (that french chap in pole vault was a victim of it) and apparently sport is a bit more pantomime in some countries which is ok but it jars a bit in those places that are used to encouraging their sportsmen vocally instead of putting others down.

[cerdic]

I thought they were booing, but my son (who has much younger ears than me!) reckons there was a bunch of people chanting "Loooo...wis"?

[Mike Harte]

As I wrote in the Silverstone thread, F1 seems to be attracting driver fans rather than racing enthusiasts, and it was evident in spades during the British GP on the Sunday. Every time Hamilton passed, whole sections of the crowd would cheer (and some stand up and clap) whilst Rosberg was treated with boos. And this continued throughout the race, and for our little group of 4, it became not only tedious but downright rude.

Button also got cheered at times, but the ignorants in the crowd often cheered Alonso because they couldn't differentiate between the two cars.

I found the spectacle very unsavoury.

[old man]

Did I also hear that Lewis had a new gearbox as well thus adding another 16(?) grid penalties? This iseems to be within the rules and so quite "fair" but does beg the question of how many changes a team will elect to make once they are at the back of the grid. Do the team have to prove the need for a change? The changes seemed to be made after each of the practice sessions, what happens to the "new" parts fitted in FP1 and then again changed in FP2, do they have to be "handed in" or just removed and put back in the truck?

Effectively, unless I am totally wrong (quite possible as I don't claim to be student of the detailed rules!), a team could / can / did .. change all restricted parts several times and only be back row.

Changes would seem to be likely to the penalty system but Lewis certainly made the best of it, kept out of trouble and if he had not lost so many racing laps may well have been second and challenging for a win.

Interesting race

[rwintle]

Why can't the grid penalties carry over? 30 grid penalties but only 22 cars in the field... so if he qualifies on pole, gets demoted 21 places to the back of the field, then he'd carry over 9 more penalties for the next race.

Yuck. Even typing that out I realize how much I don't like it. But at least it would be a bit more of a disincentive to change everything on the car at once.

[MCWB]

Originally Posted by TrapezeArtist

On a different theme, I was struck by the speed of the Red Bulls on Kemmel Straight, or perhaps I should say the "lack of slowness". As a continuation of Red Bull's complaints last year, we have been led to believe that the TAG-Heuer-Renault is still way down on power. That didn't seem to be the case at Spa, so I've just been looking at speed trap figures. In the race, Verstappen was third fastest, just 2km/h slower than the fastest. Ricciardo was another 4km/h down in 10th fastest. They were both much faster than the works Renaults, as well as being faster than the Williams, the McLarens, the Manors, etc.

It was mentioned during the telecast that they were running a bit skinnier on rear wing than usual. Interesting how things change, when RB had the car to be on the front row they often ran a bit more wing because the time they gained in S2 offset losses in S1 and S3 providing they had clean air. Now that they're not guaranteed clean air anymore and they don't have the best donk, we've seen them run lower downforce more often.