The 2007 Belgian Grand Prix

Julian Mayo · Post by **Julian Mayo** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 12:53 am

jido wrote:What happened to Robert Kubica?

How comes Rosberg and Webber did so well?

They are both fairly good drivers

Ed · Post by Ed » Mon Sep 17, 2007 1:13 am

Congratulations to Kimi Raikkonen on his 4th win of the season. He drove a faultless race and his car and engine survived!. Felipe Massa tried his best to keep up with Raikkonen and pushed him all the way till the final lap.
Fernando Alonso couldn't match the Ferraris but also drove a faultless race and managed to keep Hamilton behind and kept increasing the gap by fractions of a second each lap. It is debatable how Alonso pushed Hamilton at the start and whether that was intentional.
Lewis Hamilton wasn't as smooth as he has been in previous races locking up a few times and going wide towards the end of the race. He is still leading the championship by 2 points though!

Nick Heidfeld managed 5th (his usual place) although had Kubica not had an engine change, he would have been challenged.

Nico Rosberg is starting to regularly feature in the points (2 6th places and 2 7th places in the last 4 races).

Good to see Webber in 7th and the best Renault powered car! The car was reliable for a change!

And Heikki Kovalainen managed 8th on a single stop which seems to be the wrong choice today. He held off Kubica in the 3rd stint and that was a great duel.

Your thoughts and the driver of the day ?

Julian Mayo · Post by **Julian Mayo** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 3:09 am

Well Ed, me n the boys had to attend a house fire this arvo, n we started feeling a tad strange. The fire was in the ceiling.........yup, hydroponics........took us quite a while to put it out

Now I guess it was down to that, but I thought I heard a respected Pommy Journo say to the Skippy Commentators that back before the start of the Hungary race, Alonso marched up to Ron Denis n said
"I want you to slow Hamilton down, and I want him out of the team at the end of the season, or I go to the FIA with what I have in my laptop." So Ron Denis gives the FIA a call to pre-empt Alonso.
The FIA give Alonso a call n promise him immunity...........we all know the result.
So Fernando will NOT be at McLaren next year. The carve up he performed on Hamiton at the start was Schueyesque, to say the least

Then he lied in the conference, when he said they did not make contact.
I am really, really disappointed in the man (not the driver)

Sutil showed some raw ability, Kubica made Webber's overtaking move look even classier than it was, as he tried every which way to do the same.
Another good, quick, steady run by Heidfield.
Nico is starting to really live up to his potential.
DC is still all class.
What is up with Davo? Contract time?
Yammamoto had fun.
Massa wouldn't admit to it, but he had brake problems, all race long.....since when do we see steam coming out of brake ducts on the grid?

Hambone ......did he have a damaged car(ie. sidepod)?
Kimi.........Kimi was in the ZONE...........you know,.......when everything is in almost slow motion.........the corners come up so slow, seems like you have a full minute between each gear change, the brake pedal has an inbuit communication with the tyres n differential, you float through those corners, then let the car drift into a straight arrow for the next corner, which seems a mile away, the engine is playing Brahm's Rhapsody, you have time to check the cottonball clouds........and the only thing that stops you spending the next week just sitting, completely at one with your machine, is the Winning joy.
Better go back and check that house fire is ok, a couple of the younger Brigade fellas are not answering their phones

gkaytaz · Post by **gkaytaz** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 3:43 pm

Not a very entertaining race. I was hoping for rain... Anyway... My take:
Raikkonen: flawless (DotD)
Massa: Did nearly perfect but Raikkonen was just darn near "mechanical"
Alonso: Did his job
Hamilton: A few errors but hey he's allowed some cuz after all he's a rookie
Heidfeld: If only the BMWs were a tad quicker
Rosberg: Guy has potential
Webber: Finally!
Kovalainen: Has to be quicker, should be pushing Rosberg and Heidfeld for 5th place

Special mention: Kubica and Sutil (great stuff)

JayVee · Post by **JayVee** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 7:32 pm

Everyone is entitled to their opinion of course but to claim that someone lied without any proof is a lie in itself.

Alonso's on track actions are the cleanest of any driver out there. Ok so he was hard with Hamilton, so ? This was probably Alonso's first agressive move at the start in the last few seasons.
Hamilton is his first year has done more agressive moves at the start than anyone else yet no one has claimed 'dissapointment'.

As for Alonso's threats, well everyone can make as much stories and rumours as they want and until the full story is known then it is completely unfair to mix fact and fiction and then come up with conculsion.

What is known is that Alonso did mention to Dennis he has some emails on his system. What was the reason for this, we don't really know, yes Alonso was angry after qualifying in Hungary and why not when Hamilton goes and complains about him to the stewards. Why is it OK for Hamilton to complain to the stewards but Alonso can't ?????
Then there is the question of sharing setup data and it was all going one way it seems. Something happened in Italy and Belgium and Alonso had a clear edge.

As for the race, Alonso amazed me by driving a faultless race despite all the news and rumours. Despite the strained relations with his team. To me he is a Great man and a Great driver

Bring on Japan. A new track for everyone, now that will be interesting

jacfan · Post by **jacfan** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 10:58 pm

Hard decision DotD. I actually gave my DotD to Mark Webber. He drove well and what a passing maneuver.

jacfan · Post by **jacfan** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:01 pm

It must have been a hard race for Alonso. So many rumours and vicous thing being said about him and none of us knows the truth.
It it a pity that the season has turned out this way. I still think the whole think has the odor of fish about it.

Kapel · Post by **Kapel** » Mon Sep 17, 2007 11:16 pm

A somewhat boring race for me..

Though it started will real excitement with Alonso's move on Hamilton..i didnt feel it was dangerous as there was run off area..so IMHO was fair,somewhat wht schumi would do to

(JayVee is not gonna like this though) But in the circumstance Alonso is racing for his place now..not constructors anymore..so ok for me..
Rest except for Webber's overtaking move...race was pretty boring..

Well done kimi ..he like it here...hope the title is fought till the last race...I think Alonso is gonna take it!!

DOTD - Kimi for his flawless driving

gkaytaz · Post by **gkaytaz** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 12:02 am

Agreed. Now that the WCC title is out of the way we'll see hard battles fought between Massa, Raikkonen, Alonso and Hamilton. Massa does not have much of a chance though, so I'd think that he'll back up Raikkonen if it comes to that. As for the other two, the battle will go on until the last corner of Interlagos. Perhaps the McLaren penalty will yet bring more excitement to the season.

GhoGho · Post by **GhoGho** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 3:10 am

Kimi - did what he is expected to do.
Masa - never gave up
Alonso - borrowed a page from the MS Diaries (desperate times call for disparate measures - pg 32.)
Hamilton - seems a bit lost without the extra setup data?

DotD shared between Sutil and Kubica - try, try hard, try harder!

PS
Julian - seems the hydroponics cleared your mind

JayVee - don't get new spectacles yet, those rose tinted ones are working just fine for you

Bundy · Post by **Bundy** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 12:36 pm

My opinion on the Alonso move on Hamilton at the start;

1 All

The longer the season goes the more I want FA to win....Hamilton is starting to really bug me. What goes round comes round young fella!!

And it looks like it is starting to come round. The lack of set-up data from FA is starting have a negative effect on LH & is showing FA's all round skill.

After all there is more to F1 than merely driving fast!!

JayVee · Post by **JayVee** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 5:58 pm

Good to see you Kapel! You are entitled to call that move whatever you want.

To me it was agrressive but nothing like what Michael used to do regulary.

What annoys me is that very few say good things about Alonso despite all his acheivements and as soon as they see something that could resemble an unfair move he becomes the bad guy and gets compared to Michael's bad moves.

Don't know why people like to just highlight the bad but not even mention the good. I think the best race of the season was the Nurburgring one and Alonso was just way ahead of anyone else, go read the comments people made then!
I guess people are just too surprised that someone could actually win 2 championships and about to win his 3rd and not have dirty moves on the track.

Julian Mayo · Post by **Julian Mayo** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:01 pm

JayVee wrote:Good to see you Kapel! You are entitled to call that move whatever you want.

To me it was agrressive but nothing like what Michael used to do regulary.

What annoys me is that very few say good things about Alonso despite all his acheivements and as soon as they see something that could resemble an unfair move he becomes the bad guy and gets compared to Michael's bad moves.

Don't know why people like to just highlight the bad but not even mention the good. I think the best race of the season was the Nurburgring one and Alonso was just way ahead of anyone else, go read the comments people made then!
I guess people are just too surprised that someone could actually win 2 championships and about to win his 3rd and not have dirty moves on the track.

I'm just practising for when he is dressed in red next season

JayVee · Post by **JayVee** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:17 pm

Just did some searching around (of course only to those respected sites) trying to find out what are they saying on that start in Belgium and from Dennis himself to many journalists, the move was legitamite.

From the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 997815.stm)

Ron Dennis is quoted as saying: They were just pushing hard and they are fighting for the world championship. They didn't touch. They didn't fall off at the end of the day

There was also a comment from a reader who said : Alonso made an aggressive block on Lewis and now he's being called dangerous, when Lewis has done it previously he's called brave. Is there one rule for one and one for the other?

Also from the BBC (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsp ... 998040.stm)

Andrew Benson says: Although he was on the receiving end of criticism from the Englishman for his driving at the first corner of the race, that was a storm in a teacup - as well as unfair criticism of a perfectly justifiable racing manoeuvre.

Both articles are good reads actually!

On Autosport (http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/62508)

Again Ron Dennis is quoted as saying there was nothing wrong: "There was absolutely no problem," said Dennis. "There is nothing wrong with what happened on the opening lap.

"If they had been rival teams then everyone would have had no problems with it. But obviously they are competing teammates, so people put a greater spotlight on it. But it is fine."

JayVee · Post by **JayVee** » Tue Sep 18, 2007 6:19 pm

Julian Mayo wrote:
JayVee wrote:Good to see you Kapel! You are entitled to call that move whatever you want.

To me it was agrressive but nothing like what Michael used to do regulary.

What annoys me is that very few say good things about Alonso despite all his acheivements and as soon as they see something that could resemble an unfair move he becomes the bad guy and gets compared to Michael's bad moves.

Don't know why people like to just highlight the bad but not even mention the good. I think the best race of the season was the Nurburgring one and Alonso was just way ahead of anyone else, go read the comments people made then!
I guess people are just too surprised that someone could actually win 2 championships and about to win his 3rd and not have dirty moves on the track.
I'm just practising for when he is dressed in red next season

If he does go to Ferrari next season, it will be very sad for me.

News On F1 Forums - Talk Formula 1

The 2007 Belgian Grand Prix

Driver of the day ?