F1 Racing Point Belgium GP Thread

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First topic message reminder :

Imagine it'll all be temp like most street circuits

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Red Bull in the right place at the right time to snatch a win again. Unless Honda can significantly jump Renault that's their ceiling though.

Stamp on what has been a good few races from Max after a wayward start to the season.

Supposedly not engine related failures on both Mercs. Issues burning out softer tyres in high temps remains. Massive derp not to put under vsc, but all a bit redundant given Lewis couldn't make the tyres last anyway and eventually retired.

Bad luck for Bottas but equally threw away the win at the first corner. Wonder if he had last year at the back of his mind when he was lucky not to get a jump start penalty.

Penalty for Vettel pretty much ended his chances of winning. Has the lead but Merc look dominant again.

Decent drive from Kimi though I have a suspicion LeClerc will be in the Ferrari by Spa.

Elsewhere Haas finally deliver on the performance of the car. 8th from Alonso is no slouch. F1 money plus an out for the Indy 500 might yet be his favoured option.

Merc should be mighty at Silverstone so should be comfortable.

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Boullier resigns

[Fluxy]

Red Bull confirmed to use Honda engines in 2019

[Guest]

Boullier resigns

Not surprising. Replaced by Gil de Ferran. Interesting that, Andrea Stella, is now performance director. Basically, these are all Alonso ‘guys’, possibly hinting that Fernando may be staying for 2019?

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He seems to be hinting at it. Basically that he doesn't need to do the entire IndyCar series, and F1 pays much better.

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Engine change for Bottas, his last allowed so no penalty

Old one expected to be used in Germany but Merc want to check it.

[Guest]

Hamilton pole by 0.044. Vettel in second, and Kimi in third

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

Riccardo getting seriously exposed by Max. Riccardo should've taken the £20m from McLaren as he's never winning a championship

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

If Ferrari actually go ahead and promote Charles LeClerc, I wonder if Mercedes have the balls to promote the brilliant George Russell. The Mercedes junior is destroying the vastly overrated Lando Norris.

[Guest]

Vettel should win this comfortably now. Hamilton had a shocker. Game over

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

Vettel nailed the start whereas Hamilton got it wrong

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Awful start from Hamilton but be amazed if Kimi doesn't take a penalty for that. Wildly optimistic.

Vettel now off into the distance

[Guest]

Nice consistency from the stewards on that Kimi penalty, compared to France.

Bottas won’t do anything to trouble Vettel

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Remains to be seen how bad the damage is, but 6th is still probably still reasonable for Hamilton from this. Red Bulls might be where the charge ends barring a safety car

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As expected, none of the mid tier teams interested in fighting the Mercedes. Ferrari need to get Kimi ahead of Max is he's to lap Hamilton by 10 seconds

[Guest]

Yeah, overtaking is just boring nowadays. Just uncontested wave byes.

[Guest]

SC. Mercedes still on the old tyres, so Vettel still in the box seat

SC again. Grosjean and Sainz take each other out.

[Guest]

Mercedes will do well to hold these Ferrari’s off. I say no chance

[Born Slippy]

Looks to me as though Hamilton had insane pace levels today. Given he was down in 18th after the start, he will surely settle for only losing 7 points to Vettel.

[Fernando]

Salty Lewis out in force i see in the interviews

[dyrewolfe]

Salty Lewis out in force i see in the interviews

In fairness he's probably more annoyed at himself for fluffing the start. I think anyone would be angry at missing out on winning their home GP like that...and setting a new record in the process. Not that salty, considering...think he was pretty restrained actually. Also gave Raikkonen plenty of room at the corner, so likely also aggrieved about that. Racing incident, but still annoying when it puts you at the back of the race.

Good damage limitation drive, albeit with SC assistance...which set up a cracking last 10 laps. Great to finally see Mercedes & Ferrari fighting it out on track.

Tough luck again for Bottas, running out of tyres in the last few laps. Mercedes only had used softs left, so pitting might not have made any difference. Gave Vettel a good fight before giving up the lead. Gutsy move by Vettel.

Also really bad luck for Verstappen & Leclerc.

Alonso & Gasly doing well again to score points. Decent results for Hulk, Ocon & Magnussen.

Great to see Silverstone deliver an exciting race after the snorefest of Austria.

[dyrewolfe]

Yeah, overtaking is just boring nowadays. Just uncontested wave byes.

Well blame that on the technical regs...plus the fact the mid and lower grid teams quite sensibly concentrate on racing each other rather than making futile attempts to hold off far superior cars / drivers.

[Fernando]

Salty Lewis out in force i see in the interviews

In fairness he's probably more annoyed at himself for fluffing the start. I think anyone would be angry at missing out on winning their home GP like that...and setting a new record in the process. Also not that salty, considering. Think he was pretty restrained considering. Also gave Raikkonen plenty of room at the corner, so likely also aggrieved about that. Racing incident, but still annoying when it puts you at the back of the race.

Even Toto was salty about it suggesting Ferrari are doing it deliberately

Because they can magically make Mercedes fk up their start to get them into prime position to ram them.

[Guest]

Elite sportsman in a mood, because he’s lost. Show me one, who isn’t. Nothing story.

Bottas has had some bad luck, but just isn’t up to the job. Might wave goodbye to the constructors at this rate too, this season.

[Fernando]

Elite sportsman in a mood, because he’s lost. Show me one, who isn’t. Nothing story.

Bottas has had some bad luck, but just isn’t up to the job. Might wave goodbye to the constructors at this rate too, this season.

Protect the snowflake at all costs Im pretty sure that's just Mercedes jobs nowadays anyway 90% of radio calls seem to be them motivating him.

Bit of a difference between being in a bad mood cos he lost and him & the team accusing others of effectively cheating and doing things on purpose that's poor form from him & Mercedes no team should be doing that

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

Embarrassing allegations by Hamilton and Wolff. When Mercedes where winning uncontested races and championships in 2014-16 it was all fine and dandy. Then in 2017 Ferrari bridges the gap the weaknesses in Mercedes where shown up. Vettel lost the title in 2017 and that hyped up Hamilton more. This year under severe pressure Mercedes and Hamilton are mentally crumbling.

Blaming Ferrari are Hamilton's pathetic start is trying to limit the mental damage on Hamilton. Hamilton lacks the mental strength that Schumacher and Prost had.

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In the end, you suspect had Kimi not hit Hamilton , Vettel would've won anyway. Ferrari maybe had a slight edge, and better to be faster on the straights than the corners if you're even paced.

Good damage limitation drive if nothing else.

Red Bulls nowhere if the top teams don't take each off.

[Born Slippy]

I don’t see that at all. Vettel was struggling on his tyres early on and I suspect Hamilton would have won relatively easily, even with the poor start. He looked to have quite a large speed advantage to me.

Two races in a row Hamilton has had taken away from him without much fault of his own. Hopefully, the luck/poor strategic decisions will even up.

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

There was no indication that Vettel had any issues with his first set of tyres. It was merely Mercedes trying to keep Hamilton motivated. Vettel out front paced himself and didn't need to drive like a nutter. He had it won after he got a great start

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He was 5 seconds clear after 11 laps, then it was all about managing gaps in case of a SC. Hamilton had to push to make up a time gap to the top 5.

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Re Ferraris hitting Mercs, how does it benefit Vettel to drop to the back of the field while Hamilton leads in France.

Racing incidents, Mercedes really don't like having a legitimate challenge.

[Guest]

Neither would Ferrari, or any other team. Agree, it was a racing incident. Back-to-back races of pure incompetence from Ferrari drivers though, which has led to Mercedes relinquishing the lead of both championships, so you can why Toto is irked. He shouldn’t of said ‘deliberate’, but the stewards obviously agreed with him that it was incompetence, hence the punishment handed out to Kimi.

As for the accusations, they were off the cuff remarks, in the heat of the moment. If they were serious accusations, they would of been dealing with the FIA. If the boot was on the other foot, you’d get the exact same response from an emotional Italian team, with previous. Ferrari are not squeaky clean either.

Time to move on, but because there is nothing really exciting about F1, apart from Mercedes & Ferrari, I expect this to linger.

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It's not really off the cuff from Toto, he knew exactly what he was doing. Hamilton sure, I can buy that.

[dyrewolfe]

Salty Lewis out in force i see in the interviews

In fairness he's probably more annoyed at himself for fluffing the start. I think anyone would be angry at missing out on winning their home GP like that...and setting a new record in the process. Also not that salty, considering. Think he was pretty restrained considering. Also gave Raikkonen plenty of room at the corner, so likely also aggrieved about that. Racing incident, but still annoying when it puts you at the back of the race.

Even Toto was salty about it suggesting Ferrari are doing it deliberately

Because they can magically  make Mercedes fk up their start to get them into prime position to ram them.

Nothing magical about it. Ferrari are usually 2nd fastest in quali and have 2 drivers capable of making great starts...then its just a matter of finding a convenient place to bang wheels.

[dyrewolfe]

It's not really off the cuff from Toto, he knew exactly what he was doing. Hamilton sure, I can buy that.

I didn't hear anything like that from Toto in the post race interviews. Very unusual for him to say anything controversial. If he did there was probably a reason behind it...maybe take some heat off Lewis for botching his start?

[Fernando]

Both Lewis & Toto has apologized for their comments post race

[Guest]

Aldo Costa & Mark Ellis leaving Mercedes at the end of the year

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Seems just like yesterday I learned they exist

[Guest]

Hamilton signs contract extension until 2020.

Other driver market rumours

Lance Stroll’s Dad looking to move his son to Force India, and ease their financial problems. Would mean Ocon joining Renault. RB are locked, so the team prepared to offload Sainz to McLaren.

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Must be paying a lot to offset the loss of any prize money incurred by having the worst driver on the grid in the car

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

Looks like Grosjean could be under threat from Ferrari junior Giovinazzi

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Would take a blind stab LeClerc is the threat for his seat and Giovinazzi returning to Sauber if it happened

[Guest]

Bottas signs new 1 year deal

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

Pretty disappointing from Mercedes by retaining Bottas. They should've been aggressive and promoted the sensationally talented George Russell

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

Riccardo 20 place grid pen

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Bottas is fine for what Merc need in a close battle with Ferrari.

Consistently on the pace, consistently off Lewis'

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Ricciardo top from Hamilton but Vettel ominously poised just behind on a slower tyre. 5 of the top 10 powered by Ferrari engines, looks like they have the engine edge so far

[Guest]

Hamilton pushing his car back to the pits, possible hydraulic problem, and out of qualifying. Probably be fined for doing it.

Have a feeling Vettel is going to stroll to the title now. Ferrari package looks supreme, even before Hamilton’s issue today.

[Nathaniel Jacobs]

Mercedes crumbling under the increasing pressure from the Scuderia

[Guest]

Was bound to happen at some point, happens in every sport. Ferrari era was only around the corner

Should be a comfortable Vettel victory this weekend.

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