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| TOP: Vettel was in impeccable form again at Spa |
DESPITE concerns with blistering tyres, Sebastian Vettel took a giant step closer towards a successful defence of his world championship title today. The young German won the Belgian Grand Prix at the daunting Spa-Francorchamps circuit to record his first win since success in Valencia over two months ago. It was a drive full of control and confidence, on a day where his rivals made mistakes and failed to take opportunities of a rare Red Bull weakness.
Formula One made a welcome return from its summer break with a dramatic qualifying session on a damp track. Before the race had begun, the paddock was still talking about the incident at the end of Q2 yesterday between Lewis Hamilton and Pastor Maldonado, when the Williams driver seemed to make a deliberate attempt to take Hamilton out of qualifying altogether. Dangerous it certainly was and Maldonado was given a five place grid penalty for his actions. However, Red Bull had more pressing concerns, when tyre manufacturer Pirelli came to them at around 5pm yesterday, claiming that the super soft tyres their cars had qualified on were close to structural failure. After rival teams rejected a request from the constructor leaders to change their tyres, the concern on the faces of Adrian Newey and Christian Horner could be evident before the start of the race.
It got worse for Red Bull when Mark Webber made his customary shocking start. Just like last year, the Australian’s anti-stall mode kicked in and he was swallowed up by the front pack. Vettel led into the first corner, but was overhauled by the time the cars got to Les Combes by the fast-starting Nico Rosberg in his Mercedes. Behind them, chaos ensured at one of the trickiest first corners in Grand Prix racing. In his first start for nearly a year, Bruno Senna misjudged his braking capacity and smashed into Jaime Alguesuari’s Toro Rosso. The contact rebounded Alguesuari into Fernando Alonso and whilst the senior Spaniard got away with the impact, his compatriot was out with broken front suspension. Further back, Timo Glock’s ambition got the better of him, as he slid into the side of Paul di Resta’s Force India. The resultant concertina saw di Resta take a bite out of Jenson Button’s rear wing, whilst the two Lotus cars of Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen also got into an unfortunate tangle. Button was lucky to escape injury as debris from Senna’s damaged front wing removed his right-hand mirror and lodged into his front wing. After McLaren messed up his qualifying effort yesterday, it looked like he had another major fightback on his hands.
Vettel drove back past Rosberg as soon as the DRS was activated, but soon pitted, as did his team-mate to get rid of the iffy tyres. Button soon followed, though that was for the cosmetic repairs that he needed from the first corner skirmish. Rosberg regained the lead, but was soon passed by the recovering Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. On lap 8, Alonso and Webber showed their massive respect for one another, as the 35-year old Aussie produced great bravery to pass Alonso on the inside of the 185mph flat-out Eau Rouge kink. This sort of stuff is why he has re-signed with Red Bull Racing for the 2012 season.
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| MESSY: Hamilton's crash ended another disappointing day |
Five laps later, Hamilton’s dramatic weekend took a turn for the worse when he was pitched into the barriers by the Sauber of Kamur Kobayashi. Hamilton had just passed Kobayashi and went to defend the Japanese driver from an immediate attack. However, he moved across too soon before he was a car length infront of the Sauber. The inevitable contact had Hamilton heading straight for the barriers. He sounded rather dejected in interviews afterwards following another trying weekend which ended in grave disappointment.
The safety car was deployed to clear away the wrecked McLaren and Vettel pitted for another stop, whilst Alonso and Webber elected to take track position, rather than pit. Felipe Massa had moved upto fourth ahead of Rosberg, but was passed immediately on the restart by the fired up German. Within two laps of the restart, Vettel was back infront and took command of the race from there. Alonso looked good for second, but struggled for pace on the medium compound tyre and he was no match for Webber, who stormed past again with ten laps to go, far more comfortable on the same rubber. Meanwhile, Button had produced an ultimate masterclass in how to overtake and with only three laps to go, passed Alonso with ease to take the final podium place. Having been as low as 19th, it was another great fightback. However, no-one could stop Vettel, who cruised home to his first victory at Spa, on a circuit which was meant to be one of Red Bull’s weaker circuits in the final races.
Behind Webber, Button and Alonso, Michael Schumacher produced one of his best races of the season to finish fifth. It was a remarkable feat, having started last after a wheel fell off in the early stages of qualifying yesterday. This is a special result on a special weekend for the great German, who was celebrating his 20th anniversary of his F1 debut in a Jordan. After a promising start, Rosberg had to settle for sixth, as he was hobbled by fuel consumption concerns like he was in China. Adrian Sutil earnt some more strong points for Force India in seventh, whilst Massa could only manage eighth, as he had to make an extra unscheduled stop to replace a punctured tyre. Vitaly Petrov and Maldonado completed the points scorers, with the latter scoring his first ever championship point and probably adding insult to injury on Hamilton’s dark mood following his hooligan antics 24 hours earlier. After his delay, Senna had to settle for 13th in his first drive for Renault, while di Resta narrowly missed out on points in 11th.
With a 95 point lead, Sebastian Vettel has ended his summer drought and it is now not a question of if, but when he seals his second world championship. He could take a massive step forward at Monza; the final European event of the season in a fortnight’s time.
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