BBC Sport - Belgian Grand Prix: Raikkonen, Hamilton & Alonso must strike Dry Friday and Saturday. 40% chance of rain on race day. Im betting its a dry race. We hopefully will see who is fast after the summer break.
Doesn't make for great reading unless your a RB Vettel fan. Looking at the points deficit. Vet 172 points Kimi -38 Alonso -39 Ham -48 Car and driver wise at the min, I'd say Ham could end up being Vets biggest threat, but from this point in time ..... it seems to be a bridge to far. Well it won't stop me watching..
Steve, I hope it won't stop you watching! If there is only one race to watch, it is this one...classic track, with even, according to the french weather forecast at the minute, a probable "classic Spa weather": "a 50% chance of rain showers on sunday". Missing this would sure be a sign of disinterest...who knows, even Jenson might get a shot at the win? Rgds
Lotus have their final big upgrade coming for Belgium. I hope it's good enough so that Kimi can really take the fight to Vettel and Hamilton. The merc is something to watch out for now, if it can do well at spa it's going to be a 2 horse race between ham and vet.
As said above, I hope we'll have a "traditionnal Spa race", with rain showers included (but not in torrential mode), so as to give us an un-expected result... Rgds
We need Vettel DNFing. definitely keen for some rain, will make an awesome race. However, I don't think the lotus is much use in rain :/ . Although I doubt it can happen, I hope Raikkonen wins the WDC...otherwise I hope for Vettel.
Well, as Kimi himself has said: "I keep making races on sundays difficult for myself by not qualifying high enough"; this is one thing that he must improve upon. The other one is that I'm still under the impression that, performance-wise, the last edge is still missing from the Kimi-Lotus pair: at the Nürburgring, during the last laps, when he was chasing Vettel, I was not really believing he would have catched him, and overtook him too... But, even if he doesn't admit it himself, he is usually "quite good" at Spa, isn't he? Rgds
Yeah he's fantastic at spa, I think he's won it 4 times now? He stands a good chance this Sunday.... Saturdays are difficult for him, perhaps because he focusses his setup for tire management more on Sundays rather than quick over a single lap on the Saturday. I think Kimi does have the hunger for another title (otherwise he wouldn't be racing in F1 now), it's just the car hasn't evolved from it's promises earlier on in the season (mainly due to James Allison leaving and lack of money). That's frustrating.
Hence my thinking he probably sets the car up for Sunday. Where he normally does a 2 stop Grosjean requires 3.
48 points would have been less than 20 in the old system. Remember 2010, we had a gap like that between #1 and #2 with only two races to go, and you all know what happend. That WDC is far from over. I like the excitement added, what I hate, however, is that Mercedes only got so fast after that test...
True, but it's still clear IMO that Kimi has lost 1 lap pace from his heyday of '05-06. Even he admits he struggles to qualify.
If kimi does win another race this year this is the place itll happen. Hopefully both he and hamilton can finish ahead of vettel.
The WDC is over. Vettel is too fast and consistent and the RBR is good. With that lead, it's done with. Alonso had less of a lead last year and a much slower car and still almost won it. It's going to be too much to overcome. Plus when it comes down to it, LH will make some mistakes.
Come on man, I expected better from you, that is really reaching it, or are you getting your excuses in already just in case...
Clearly to me the momentum is with Mercedes. I am not counting them out vs Red Bull. I have zero faith in Ferrari given the on-going aero issues. The team also seems internally fractured overall. They do not appear as a cohesive unit to me.
Spa weather has changed now: Friday 26C and sunny. 30% chance shower Saturday and dry on Sunday with temps in the 20's C. Hopefully this maintains and we have a proper dry race to assess the upgrades being run.
