Belgian GP report and analysis
Lewis Hamilton took pole position, but he was powerless to stop Sebastian Vettel’s stronger Ferrari blasting to a vital win at Spa
FAILURE WAS NOT AN OPTION FOR SEBASTIAN VETTEL AND FERRARI IN THE BELGIAN Grand Prix last weekend, not after having a pace advantage in the previous two races in Germany and Hungary but watching Lewis Hamilton rack up back-to-back wins thanks to his wet-weather brilliance. Vettel must have feared he faced a hat-trick of reverses when Hamilton grabbed pole position in the Spa-francorchamps rain on Saturday. But on Sunday the Ferrari man took a dominant victory after passing Hamilton on the first lap to get his 2018 title bid back on track.
All the talk was of Ferrari’s power unit advantage, particularly after Hamilton referred to“a few trick things going on in their car”straight after the race, but that wasn’t the only difference. As Toto Wolff put it, this weekend exposed his Mercedes team’s“many deficits”. The main weaknesses for Mercedes were punch off the final chicane and out of La Source. While Ferrari was consistently slower in the twisty middle sector of the Spa lap, which runs from Les Combes to Stavelot, everywhere else it seemed to have an advantage in dry conditions, including on the long run to the final chicane. Given both Ferrari and Mercedes were powered by the third 2018 evolution of their V6 engines for Spa (Ferrari’s customer teams ran this first in Hungary, while all Mercedes teams got the upgrade in Belgium), this pattern could hold for the rest of the season. But Mercedes also reckons strong corner-exit traction played a part in Ferrari’s supremacy, on top of the advantages on the straights detected on GPS data. Add to the mix Mercedes battling tyre temperature management problems, with Hamilton suffering very obvious blistering on his rear rubber, and you had a team that was up against it. “The last two corners and Turn 1 [La Source] are where we were losing a lot of time – I think most of our time to be honest – but also today [Vettel] didn’t have to do any management,”said Hamilton.
“He was just flat chat and looked after the tyres better than I did.” Despite all that, Hamilton should never be discounted when starting from pole. The last thing he wanted was to face a headwind on the Kemmel Straight, but that’s exactly what was waiting for him on the first lap. Having made a good enough start to stay ahead into La Source, albeit only after moving to his left and pinning Vettel to the outside of the track to delay the Ferrari’s entry, Hamilton was in front as they climbed the hill. Having held off second-row starter Esteban Ocon, Vettel inevitably started to close on Hamilton on the long Kemmel Straight. Hamilton kept to the right-hand side of the track out of the kink, meaning Vettel had to blast past him on the outside. Vettel knew Hamilton would pick up a tow and be able to counterattack, so moved to the inside as the Mercedes came back at him. The two Racing Point Force Indias, Sergio Perez to the outside and Ocon tight on the inside, then made it four-wide for the lead. Ocon had a decent overlap on Vettel, but despite the fact he could have tried for the lead (he reckoned he was only a metre away from doing so), he opted to go conservative and had to file back into fourth place. Given he risked taking out himself, his team-mate, and two title rivals – one of which was driving for the team of his overall employer – this was an understandable moment of discretion. What mattered was Vettel had done exactly what he needed to do and seized the lead. Moments later, the safety car was deployed for the first-corner accident caused by Nico Hulkenberg, starting 18th thanks to engine penalties, locking up and launching Fernando Alonso’s Mclaren over Charles Leclerc’s Sauber. This eliminated all three, while some precision pruning of Daniel Ricciardo’s Red Bull rear wing by Alonso’s flying Mclaren effectively ruined his race and also played a part in the Red Bull hitting Kimi Raikkonen at the exit of the La Source hairpin, giving the Ferrari a right-rear puncture. Having lost the first battle, Hamilton had a chance to strike back when the race restarted at the end of lap four. Perhaps this was his only chance. Vettel gunned it out of Turn 16, the first part of Blanchimont, but Hamilton stuck right with him. Hamilton feinted to the inside into the chicane in an attempt to distract Vettel (the line for the green-flag restart, where you are permitted to overtake from, is at the second apex of the corner), before returning to the orthodox line. A slight lock-up cost him, and he crossed the start/finish line six-tenths of a second behind and too far back to launch an attack into La Source.
Vettel was critical of his own initial handling of the restart.“it was one of my worst, [attempting] initially to surprise Lewis,”said Vettel. “He was sharp and obviously I knew I had nothing to fear because the safety car line is not braking for Turn 18 [the chicane]. “When I realised the initial bit was not great – I caught some wheelspin – I didn’t want to slow down again to then surprise him or get a second chance because I don’t think that’s fair. Then I focused on the last corner and that worked really well, plus Turn 1 where we had a tailwind the whole race, so I made sure I knew where the wind was going. I got it really right and had a great exit. “Once I was told the gap, which was around 0.9s at the exit of Turn 1, I knew that I should be safe. But you never know with a bit of headwind up that long straight [Kemmel]. I looked in the mirror and when I saw he wasn’t a threat I was happy.” That 0.9s gap was the moment all hope was lost for Hamilton and Mercedes, although he suggested that even if he had got back ahead, it would have been to no avail because Vettel“would have sailed past me on the straight”. “I probably could have gone up the inside into the last corner, maybe just about, but they would just overtake us on the straight, so I just tried to stay close,”said Hamilton.“but he just pulled away out of the last corner and then through Turn 1 they’ve been quicker than us all weekend, so by the time I came out of Turn 1 he was quite far ahead.” What followed was a typical first stint of a grand prix. Vettel ended the first full racing lap 1.7s to the good, and he extended that to a firststint peak of four seconds at the end of lap 14 of the 44. It was now all about when Mercedes would attempt the undercut, which it opted for at the end of lap 21 when Vettel’s lead was just over three seconds. Hamilton emerged behind the temporarily second Red Bull of Max Verstappen, who had dispatched Ocon and then Perez to climb to third by lap 10 with passes at Les Combes. Ferrari, inevitably, called Vettel in immediately and any threat was diffused by a combination of a strong in-lap – just over half-a-second quicker than Hamilton’s – and a 2.2s
“OCON WAS CONSERVATIVE. IT WAS AN UNDERSTANDABLE MOMENT OF DISCRETION”
stop that ensured there was no time lost in the pitlane. When it had all settled down, Vettel was 1.9s clear. Hamilton gave it all he had, but over the next two laps he lost a combined total of 0.371s to Vettel. Hamilton’s pace dropped back by 1.1s on lap 26, putting him 3.2s behind. The Vettel/ferrari combination was simply faster than the Hamilton/mercedes combination. Vettel drove immaculately and his advantage gradually grew to 11.061s by the chequered flag. “Ultimately, Ferrari were just faster all weekend,”said Hamilton. “If you look at last year, they were faster here also and we just managed to hold them behind. As for today, their power is obviously much better than it was and they sailed past us at the start and their pace was just stronger [through the race].” The bottom line is that Ferrari was faster. What’s more, Vettel again showed how effectively he can progress through a grand prix weekend to get the most from himself and the car. For the first half of the weekend, until topping Q2, he looked slower than team-mate Raikkonen. Given that progression, had Q3 been dry Vettel would likely have been ahead of both Hamilton and Raikkonen. What’s clear is that Ferrari does, right now, have the upper hand and it was only rain that struck in the German GP, in which Vettel crashed, Hungarian GP qualifying and then on Saturday in Belgium that has allowed Hamilton to turn the tables. “Imagine if it hadn’t rained in Hockenheim, we wouldn’t have won, he would have won,”said Hamilton.“if it hadn’t rained in Hungary, we wouldn’t have won, he would have won. And if it hadn’t rained yesterday we probably wouldn’t have started first and I don’t know if I could have towed past him down that back straight. So it might have been similar to last year, but reversed. “The rain creates opportunity and we can’t just rely on that. We’ve got to improve performance.” Vettel gave Hamilton no such opportunity to turn the tables during the race this time. His qualifying performance is questionable, for despite complaints about the battery de-rating Vettel also lost time to a mistake in the long Pouhon left-hander and with conservative braking into the chicane, but on Sunday he was bang on it. And even when he didn’t get the best of the restart, Vettel made the right decisions to consolidate his position. “I hope we have more power, that’s what we’re working for,” said Vettel when the suggestion Ferrari had an engine advantage – triggered by Hamilton’s reference to his rival team’s“tricks”– was put to him.“if that’s the case, then well done to our engine guys. “I think this feels pretty straightforward. We ran a little bit less wing, were faster in sector one, sector three and in sector two a little bit slower. But I wouldn’t disagree that this year in terms of power we are a lot closer than we were last year. I think last year we didn’t have a chance here. It’s good to see that we are making progress.” As has often – but not always – proved to be the case this year, while box-office A-list stars Vettel and Hamilton duked it out their respective team-mates were cast into supporting roles.
Valtteri Bottas came into the weekend knowing he would start at or near the back thanks to a complete power unit change strategically deployed at Spa. From 17th on the grid, he then clattered the rear of Sergey Sirotkin’s Williams on the approach to the first corner. The deployment of the safety car allowed him to pit for a replacement front wing and to change from soft to supersoft tyres. He restarted down in 16th, ahead only of the twice-lapped Red Bull of Ricciardo, and started making his way up the order. Nobody put up much of a fight against the Mercedes, although the highlight of Bottas’s rise to an eventual fourth place was a ballsy move on Brendon Hartley’s Toro Rosso for 13th on lap seven. Bottas had the inside line into the left-hand entry to Eau Rouge, then closed the move through the fast right. After making his second stop for another set of softs with 15 laps to go, he emerged in sixth behind the two Force Indias. But like Verstappen before him, he made two effortless passes on the run to Les Combes to salvage fourth place – over half-a-minute behind the Red Bull driver and 7.4s ahead of Perez. That latter figure proved important as it rendered harmless the five-second penalty he would incur for the Sirotkin clash at the start of the race.
“AS HAMILTON ADMITTED, THE UPCOMING ITALIAN GP WEEKEND LOOKS ‘VERY TOUGH’”
As for Raikkonen, he rejoined after that first-lap puncture but damage to the back of the car meant he was facing an impossible fight, and he quietly retired after completing eight laps. Realistically, both Finns are relegated to a supporting role in the championship fight between Hamilton and Vettel, although it would have been interesting to see if Raikkonen could have threatened for pole position either in dry qualifying or had he been refuelled in qualifying and able to set a lap time when the track was at its fastest. But 2018 is all about Hamilton versus Vettel, and this season is looking like a role-reversal from last year. While Hamilton has the championship lead, cut from 24 to 17 points, just as Vettel had in the middle of last season, it now seems that the Ferrari is the package to have while the Mercedes faces fewer victory opportunities. Last year, a combination of unreliability and Vettel’s misjudgement at the start of the Singapore GP ensured Hamilton and Mercedes vanished into the distance. It won’t take long for the points situation to be turned on its head if the current competitive pattern continues and gives Vettel the chance to do the same. And as Hamilton admitted, the upcoming Italian GP weekend looks“very tough”. In a world championship battle that has ebbed and flowed, it was always going to be essential for Vettel to win at Spa and Monza to mitigate his losses from the previous two races. He’s halfway there, and if he finishes the job in Italy, Vettel will surely leave Ferrari’s home race as clear title favourite, even if he leaves without the points lead. But the competitive pendulum could swing again before we’re through. That’s what makes this battle between two great drivers, and two great teams locked in a ferocious development war, so gripping.