During the week, McLaren and Daniel Ricciardo announced that the Australian driver would not drive for the team in 2023, that he would finish up with the papaya team at the end of this season. Much speculation arose over the summer break when F2 champion Oscar Piastri and Alpine had somewhat of a public disagreement over the status of the vacant seat that came from Fernando Alonso’s switch to Aston Martin next year. It is rumoured that Piastri will take Ricciardo’s place at McLaren next year, McLaren going for a different line up as things haven’t been going their way this season. But there is still a dispute about Piastri’s contract with Alpine which has been brought to F1’s Contract recognition Board.
Ricciardo still tried to keep his spirits high in Belgium, his warm smile stood out even though he faced some difficult questions on his future. He received support from his former teammates and champions Vettel and Verstappen, as well as seven time world champion Hamilton, who only had words of praise.
Plenty of drivers took grid penalties during the weekend, 8 drivers in total. It began with much talk about grid penalty rules and how they would be applied in relation to qualifying and taking up new components at different times. Verstappen, Leclerc, Ocon, Norris, Zhou, Schumacher and Tsunoda were all to take “back of the grid” penalties. Meanwhile Valtteri Bottas took a 20 place grid penalty.
Practice
On track, over the practice sessions, Mercedes were a bit behind their competitors Red Bull and Ferrari. They went from pole in Hungary to 1.8 seconds off the pace in Spa. In FP1 our usual trio topped the charts, with Sainz leading Leclerc and Verstappen. F2 driver Liam Lawson took Gasly’s place in the AlphaTauri in FP1 as part of the young drivers test. Kevin Magnussen had an issue so the session was red flagged for a period of time. There was also some rain towards the end of the session; some drivers pitted for inters to test out the track and others stayed in the garage and ended their session early.
In FP2, the McLaren showed some good place, finishing the session behind Verstappen and Leclerc in P3. Verstappen was comfortably ahead of Leclerc with eight tenths between them. Lance Stroll gave Aston Martin a pleasant surprise with fourth place. Mercedes again were struggling in comparison to their rivals, only seeing P6 and P8.
After some not so good sessions on Friday, Perez came out on Saturday morning charging with a late flying lap, finishing ahead of Verstappen and Sainz in FP3 before qualifying. Once again, there was a considerable gap between the Red Bulls and the Ferrari. Good runs from Norris and Alonso saw them in fourth and fifth. Leclerc had a spin and went into the gravel during the session which caused a brief red flag but he reported that he believed the car had no damage.
Qualifying
Sainz and Perez would be the pair that battled it out over the true pole position as the others would take their grid penalties. Verstappen set the pace in Q1 and didn’t go for a second run, nor did Perez and the Ferraris. Albon impressed, taking him to P6. Sebastian Vettel just missed out on Q2 by two thousandths of a second to Mick Schumacher. Following him out was Latifi, Magnussen, Tsunoda and Bottas.
In Q2, Ricciardo received a tow from Norris, having not done a first run like the others. Ocon did the same for Alonso. Leclerc ended that session P1 after an improved time but the Red Bulls and Sainz chose not to go out again after their first attempts. The tow for Alpine worked better than it did for McLaren as Ricciardo failed to qualify for Q3 while Alonso secured a place in the top 10 shootout. Alex Albon impressed again, taking that tenth place and making his first Q3 appearance of the season. Completing the elimination in that round alongside Ricciardo was Gasly, Zhou, Stroll and Schumacher.
As seen for most of the weekend, Verstappen showed superiority to the others; completing first flying lap and making it his only, sitting back and watching from the garage as he set the fastest time overall. A little mix up in the Ferrari garage saw Leclerc unnecessarily take a new set of soft tyres to give Sainz the tow to fight for pole. His confusion at this mistake could be heard over the radio.
Sainz did not improve on his second run, meaning he was P2 but would start on pole in Sunday’s race. Perez followed behind in P3 but would start on the front row alongside Sainz while his teammate would fall down to 15th and Leclerc 16th. Ocon was fifth but would be demoted to 17th due to his penalty, Alonso was sixth and Hamilton seventh but both would be promoted to starting on the second row together. Russell and Albon would start fifth and sixth on row three in the race after qualifying eight and ninth but benefitting from others penalties and Norris would start 18th behind Ocon as he was 10th in Q3.
The top 10 starting grid: Sainz, Perez, Alonso, Hamilton, Russell, Albon, Ricciardo, Gasly, Stroll, Vettel
Race
Tsunoda would start from the pitlane after some more power unit changes, and his teammate Gasly would do the same as he had issues with his car just before the lights out.
Verstappen proved to be untouchable in his Red Bull, making his way through the grid all the way up from 14th to 1st; crossing the finish line 17 seconds ahead of his teammate Perez in second, which gave the team a fantastic 1-2. The pace and strategy of the Red Bulls saw them obliterate their competition on Sunday. Verstappen now leads Perez who is now second, by 96 points in the World Driver’s Championship.
Ferrari had more of a tricky situation than desired when Charles Leclerc who started behind Verstappen in 15th had made his way up to ninth by Lap 2 but found an issue with his front right tyre and had to pit, dropping him down to P17. He eventually made his way back up to P5, keeping his head down and working through the field, he was behind Russell by a large margin and decided to pit late for new softs to set the fastest lap. But with not a great enough gap to Alonso in sixth place, Leclerc was under pressure from the Spaniard and lost a place to him. Although he quickly gained the place back Leclerc, received a five second time penalty for speeding in the pitlane in the bid to come out ahead of Alonso, ultimately demoting him to sixth place. Sainz, who was no match for the Red Bulls, secured a podium for his team ahead of Russell who had closed the gap between them, but Sainz was able to hang on to P3.
It was a mixed day of emotions for Mercedes, Russell managed to continue his streak of finishing in the top five in every race he’s completed. He pushed for P3 towards the end, in the aim of snatching it from Sainz but was unsuccessful so the Brit earned P4 in Spa. On the other hand, his teammate was not met with such fortune. Lewis Hamilton retired from the race on Lap 1 after a first lap incident with Fernando Alonso which left his car beyond repair.
McLaren fell further behind their rivals Alpine as the French team managed a double points finish with Alonso benefitting from Leclerc’s 5 second penalty, moving up to P5 and Ocon securing P7. Alonso was not badly affected by his brush in with Hamilton at the start and continued his race as normal, showcasing some real speed in the Alpine; Ocon was the same and impressed with two double overtakes during the race. Both Ricciardo and Norris failed to score points, although, Ricciardo had been running in the points for the majority of the race.
Williams took a point home with Alex Albon’s 10th place finish. The Thai driver had been consistently good all weekend and got the reward for all of his efforts on Sunday afternoon. He was slightly under pressure as a DRS train formed behind him in the latter part of the race. Latifi’s incident on the second lap which sent him to the pits and caused the safety car saw him at the back of the field for the rest of the race.
Alfa Romeo did not have a good weekend. On Lap 2, the birthday boy Valtteri Bottas was an unlucky victim when trying to avoid a swerving Latifi and ended his race early. It was definitely not how the Finn would have liked to celebrate his 33rd birthday. Guanyu Zhou was among those who took grid penalties but he was unable to make up enough places to get into point scoring positions.
A decent day at the office for Aston Martin with P8 for Sebastian Vettel and P11 for Lance Stroll who just missed out to Albon for that last championship point. Vettel’s incredible start had him up in P5 on the opening lap but he later fell down to P8 and finished there. Lance Stroll unfortunately found himself in the DRS train and was unable to overtake Albon.
AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly had a great 100th F1 grand prix, earning his team P9 from his pitlane start. His strategy saw him make his way through the pack and finish behind Vettel. Tsunoda had the same strategy as Zhou and came out ahead of the rookie in that battle for P13.
Finally, it was a weekend to forget for Haas. The team knew they would struggle for pace in Spa and were not expecting great results but P16 and P17, a whole lap down from Verstappen is not where they would like to be.
We now head to The Netherlands for round 15 of the 2022 F1 season, the home grand prix of the reigning world champion who looks unstoppable at the minute; is there anyone who can stop him?
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