2024 Belgian GP: Post Race Analysis

Not the most exciting race. Going into the race it looked like 4 teams had a shot, but extreme tire wear meant major tire management. 8 car DRS train meant no action on the straights. With the top 4 teams being separated by just a few tenths, there isn't enough delta to pass on pace.

Mercedes very bitter sweet. George finally made a ballsy call that paid off. He was kind of set up to try the 1 stop but he did a brilliant job making it work. Hats off to Mercedes for letting their drivers race. Full lynch mob on Mercedes for once again screwing George out of a win. Car being found under weight is an easy DQ. One would assume Lewis' car would be identical, perhaps George lost more body weight during the race. I'm sure many will wonder what Lewis' post race weight was. Hamilton was a star during the race. The Mercedes may have actually been the 2nd fastest car. Track position was everything and Lewis ran his race beautifully and deserved to be the winner in the end. Mercedes have by far been the best team over the last few weeks.

McLaren looked like they had the pace to win, but just never had the track position to exploit it. Once Oscar got clean air he was much faster than everyone. As soon as he caught up to Hamilton, his pace suffered immediately. Lando kind of the same story. Once again he had a terrible start that hurt his race immensely. He desperately needs to improve his starts. McLaren are truly wasting their advantage that could be all but gone now that Mercedes is on top form. Bad strategies and mistakes from the drivers have been extremely costly. They've had a car that could win most of the last 6-8 races, and they have won just 1.

Ferrari didn't help themselves today. It was completely expected that Leclerc would drop back. That is his MO, but the Ferrari was never going to be fast enough to win. However we saw being the fastest wasn't necessary to win. Ferrari had the best tire strategy in the stable but maybe didn't utilize them the best. Slow pitstop at a critical time for Leclerc didn't help. Similar story on Sainz's side. Honestly the car was just too slow to fight up front.

Red Bull had the 3rd best car with Max, and the 4th best with Perez. Their choice to run the high downforce setup was good for a wet quali but hurt them in a dry race. A very solid drive from Max, his pace was as good as the leaders when it clean air. Thought he would make a move on Leclerc at the end but just couldn't get a run on him. The fact he extended his lead on Norris has to be considered a successful day. Perez looked like Perez. To go from 2nd to 8th is a terrible result. Sure the team didn't help him with strategy at all, but he was slow from the drop of the green flag.

Aston Martin might have only been the 6th best team. Alonso just maximized what the car was capable of doing. Even if they were 5th best, they are a long way off of the top 4. This means 1 or 2 points is all they can fight for right now. Stroll was never in a shot for points, but I'm impressed he held off Albon with tires that were completely shot.

Alpine had what looked like an incredible livery. Reality it was completely bare carbon with a red nose and a few stickers. Either way it looked damn good from a distance. Big updates and the car looked pretty strong. That must give them confidence since Spa is a power track and their PU sucks. A good drive to score the final point from Ocon. Not really sure why Gasly ended up so far back from his teammate.

RB were stuck in the second DRS train along with others and also didn't have any way to move up. A strong performance from Ricciardo with nothing to show for it. Yuki had a rough race to say the least.

Williams were okay on a track that suits their car. Not good enough for points. What does it say when Albon can't get passed Stroll on dead tires running 1:50s. Logan finishing ahead of Hulk... he must be proud of himself.

Haas looked pretty terrible. I think they split the setups on the cars and neither looked good in the race. The high speed, high top speed tracks don't seem to be their strong suit.

Sauber looked even worse than Haas. But it's hard to say since the drivers couldn't push the tires or make any passes.

Driver of the Day: Since George drove a car that was under weight, he gets excluded. So Lewis Hamilton. Very clean start, a good pass on Leclerc. Built a lead to keep anyone out of DRS, protected his tires. Did everything right.

 

Minimum weight is with driver and does NOT include fuel. By the rules there is no excuse to run the cars below minimum weight. Technically it is illegal. Obviously teams are going to run as close as possible if not below and calculate for slag pick up post race. But Spa never has a full cool down lap so teams should have factored this in. Surely we can assume Hamilton's car started the race at the same weight and he didn't pick up any rubber after the checkered flag either. The only variables would be body weight (drivers lose a lot of water weight in a race) and a slight difference in tire wear.

 

I believe the 80 kg is a calculated figure at a fixed point (driver seat). Obviously some drivers are more than 80kg. In fact I would say most drivers aren't even close to that weight. 80 kg = 176 lbs. Yuki might be 140 pounds. So they ballast the car below the drivers seat to make up the difference. Good question on how they factor in the transfer of drink water which is part of the car's weight pre race, and then part of the driver weight post race. I do think there is a decent amount of evaporation given the cockpits are typically 100F or more, combined with the wind factor of open cockpits.

Then we must ask how stingy are the post race checks. They already do not check every single car with a full inspection. Crazy as that seems. As far as I know, they just take a 1L sample of fuel post race. I haven't heard that they drain each and every car of all fuel. Perhaps there is a level of acceptance as long as the car is driving above the minimum weight at all times in the race (factoring in the 1L post race sample). While there could be some minor tricks being played with weight distribution and center of gravity when it comes to weight from ballast, fuel or drink water, perhaps the inspections just need to show the car is 799.5 kg or higher.

 

Alonso made a 1 stop work