BELGIAN GP A LIGHTWEIGHT RESULT PUNISHES A SURPRISE WINNER

The Belgian Grand Prix signaled half-time in the 2024 Formula One Championship season.

After a near non-stop schedule with 14 races completed, the F1 world shuts down for almost a month of rest, reflection and rebuilding for the ten race to follow.

Whilst designed to give teams and drives a much needed opportunity to unwind, it may well prove to be the opposite for some teams and drivers.

Alpine have gone from the chubby child at the back of the grid to a genuine challenger for top 10 results in the midfield scrummage, whilst Visa Cash App RB continue to untwine some troublesome upgrades that have brought the wobbles to the VCARB01 in more ways than one.

The much talked about gossip on the Red Bull driver roster has apparently come to a head with a meeting of senior Red Bull personnel in the days following the Belgian Grand Prix.

Verstappen, Perez and Tsunoda all held 2025 contracts, whilst Daniel Ricciardo , who didn’t, was rumoured to be on the chopping block as the Red Bull organisation look to find a place for driver-in-waiting Liam Lawson.

Over the past month the axing rumour mill had swung towards Sergio Perez as the fortunes of the #11 and #3 drivers have changed.

Ricciardo has out-performed teammate Tsundo more frequently and scored points in the driver’s championship more in line with the performance of the Visa Cash VCARB01 and that of Tsunoda.

Conversely Perez’s results have been well and truly overshadowed by teammate Verstappen, to the tune of 114 points across the past eight races.

Crucially, the constructor’s championship had seemed a foregone conclusion for Oracle Red Bull Racing by the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. The pendulum then swung heavily in favour of McLaren with the MCL 38. That swing has seen the deficit to Red Bull evaporate to just 42 points.

A similar improvement from Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 and Ferrari thereabouts has turned the 2024 season into a seven horse race, with Verstappen riding solo.

It is an increasingly worrying trend which the Oracle Red Bull Racing Team want to examine and rectify over the break.

A further potential twist lay in an upcoming ‘filming day” for the Visa Cash App RB team at Imola in he coming week or so. It had been referred to as a head-to-head between the incumbent Ricciardo and would-be driver Lawson for place on the grid at Zandvoort. Tsunoda will also be in attendance in what could also be a three-way comparison.

What is the likely prize for the fastest driver?

Again it is mere speculation. From a simple test day to the ‘Gunfight at the O.K Corral, just about every possible scenario has been spruiked.

Winner takes second Visa Cash App seat from Zandvoort. Winner takes Perez’s seat in 2025 with Perez moved to Visa Cash App. Ricciardo out regardless of the times and recent results, Perez to be ‘retired’ or status quo remains.

With rumoured input from Liberty Media about potential fallout from a Perez sacking before the Mexican Grand Prix, it is that last scenario which has seemingly played out.

It has been suggested by Horner himself, that the opening races in the second-half of the season are at venues where Perez has excelled in seasons past.

One wonders if the litmus test for Perez, Ricciardo and co will be the upcoming events at Zandvoort, Monza and Azerbaijan. Any continuation of the constructor’s points imbalance and the potential loss of the 2024 constructor’s crown would be catastrophic.

The Dutch media have quoted Christian Horner as saying in the Belgian Grand prix post race media scrummage “

We need to study and discuss this thoroughly. Obviously, we don’t want a driver who starts the race from P2 to finish in P8.

“We need two cars that score points. McLaren closed in on us again today. That has to stop. Hopefully, we can get our revenge after the summer break.”

Helmut Marko was at his blunt best when asked directly if Spa was Sergio Perez’s last F1 appearance for Red Bull;
 
“Sergio had the opportunity to achieve a good result from second place,” He responded.

“Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

“He completely collapsed, especially in the last stint, when he set 1:48 times.

“What looked so positive in qualifying unfortunately didn’t materialise in the race.”

The Belgian Grand Prix was presented as the final chance to impress before the summer break.

McLaren and Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 looked to continue their forward momentum, while Oracle Red Bull Racing and Ferrari looked to reclaim that early season advantage.

Pole position for Max Verstappen, albeit with a ten-place penalty for a power unit change, and third for Sergio Perez gave the impression of a return to form for Oracle Red Bull Racing.

Second for Charles Leclec and fourth for Hamilton, ahead of the two McLaren drivers, Russell, Sainz, Alonso and Ocon also brought hopes of extending the constructor’s championship gap.

Whilst most of the field went for the conventional two-stop race strategy, it was a piece of opportunistic thinking that turned George Russell from a possible Top 5 finisher into a short-lived race winner. It may well have been a strategy that signed off on his later disqualification through excessive wear on his hard compound tyres.

Sergio Perez’s second place on the grid laster barely a few hundred metres.

Lewis Hamilton pounced on the approach to the Turn 1 La Source hairpin and took second behind Leclerc’s Ferrari. Lando Norris dropped a wheel off the track at the exit of La Source and lost track position to Piastri and Russell.

Perez lost another place to Piastri on Lap 13, having complained of issues with the battery charge on his RB20.

Rather understandably fifth place was then lost to team leader Verstappen, before Lando Norris relegated Perez to seventh on Lap 31. With Piastri ahead of Verstappen and the second Mclaren ahead of the #11, it meant a further bite into Oracle Red Bull Racing’s hold on the Constructor’s Championship. Additionally, every point earned during the season is more money in the bank.

Hamilton took control of the race on Lap 3 with a move around the outside of Leclerc at Les Combes.  He then held the upper hand over his rivals in a much improved Mercedes AMG Petronas F1.

Until..

Think about the one stop,” Russell suggested to his team on Lap 26 of 44 as Hamilton made his second stop.

That move put the race on a Mercedes knife-edge.

“How much quicker do I need to be?” asked Hamilton on Lap 34. The #44 driver somewhat concerned that he had been placed on the wrong strategy by his team.

“Am I on target to beat him or not?”

“It’s close, it’s close,” replied his engineer.

Oscar Piastri doubled-up on his win at the Hungarian Grand Prix to challenge Hamilton for second in the closing laps of the race. Having despatched Leclerc from fourth on Lap 26, Piastri was some 5.455 second behind the second-placed Mercedes AMG Petronas F1.

That gap had dipped below the crucial one-second on the final lap, giving the Australian the benefit of DRS along the Kemmel Straight. That would normally provide a 16kmh advantage for the following driver, though Hamilton likewise was within a similar margin to the race leader, which negated any DRS benefit.

Russell took the chequered flag from Hamilton and Piastri. The trio line-astern at the finish with each and equidistant half-a-second apart.

Leclerc finished fourth, Verstappen fifth, while Norris, Sainz, Perez, Alonso and Ocon completed the Top 10.

Daniel Ricciardo had come agonisingly close to another points finish. The Visa Cash App RB driver had climbed from thirteenth on the grid into points-scoring contention at the half-distance point in the race. He was right in the middle of a three-way battle with the two Aston Martins and the Alpine of Esteban Ocon.

He clung onto tenth until the final four laps of the race. Ocon had fresher tyres and a faster car and eventually demoted the Australian from tenth.

Russell’s strategy defying decision looked to have been a masterstroke in intuition, until the post race checks brought a horrid end to the Englishman’s outstanding drive.

In the immediate aftermath of the announcement, Mercedes believed that the combination of an unexpected one-stop strategy, increased tyre wear, lack of a safety car to save fuel and the absence of a traditional cool-down lap to adhere additional clumps of discarded rubber to their sticky-hot tyres had also conspired to place Russell 1.5kg under the 798kg minimum weight specification.

“It’s really tough for George to have been disqualified from the win after such an impressive drive,” Mercedes AMG Petronas F1’s Andrew Shovlin explained.

“He did a brilliant job to hang onto the tyres and defend to the finish. We don’t yet understand why the car was underweight following the race but will investigate thoroughly to find the explanation.

“We expect that the loss of rubber from the one-stop was a contributing factor, and we’ll work to understand how it happened.

“We won’t be making any excuses though. It is clearly not good enough and we need to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

For the second race in succession the race winner was ultimately declared by forces external to the cars and drivers themselves.

Lewis Hamilton expressed some mixed feelings in a post-race social media post.

“Mixed feelings for today’s result,” Hamilton wrote on his social media platforms.

 “Obviously happy to get the win but I feel for George and it’s disappointing for the team not to get the 1-2.

“A lot of positives to take from today though. At the start of the weekend, we didn’t expect to be at the front or the pace we had, so it’s great to see just how much progress has been made and that we are in the fight. We take all these positives with us into the break and will come back a stronger team ready to keep the momentum going.”

And now F1 sleeps for just shy of a month before a return to the Dutch seaside at Zandvoort.

Just who gets to dust off the racesuit or face a weekend building sandcastles and pondering what went wrong on a Dutch beach is anyone’s guess!

Photos: F1 FB

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