Official 2015 Belgian Grand Prix Thread ***SPOILERS with cracking high-res images of mountain ranges on Pluto***

2015 Belgian Grand Prix



Previous Winners

2004 - Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren Mercedes)
2005 - Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren Mercedes)
2007 - Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari)
2008 - Felipe Massa (Ferrari)
2009 - Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari)
2010 - Lewis Hamilton (McLaren Mercedes)
2011 - Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Renault)
2012 - Jenson Button (McLaren Mercedes)
2013 - Sebastian Vettel (Red Bull Renault)
2014 - Daniel Ricciardo (Red Bull Renault)

---

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2015 06:38AM by EC83.

Excited for qualy - Red Bulls looking a little more zippy than usual, Force Indias might spring a surprise and fingers crossed whatever's happening at McLaren is actually that they're foxing

where did that .5 second came from?

GP2 and GP3 as entertaining as ever. Luckily de Jong seems to be ok.

---

Some mods
F1 1996 | F1 2002 | F1 2007 | F1 2011 | F1 2013 | F1 2015 | F1 2018

kedy89 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> GP2 and GP3 as entertaining as ever. Luckily de
> Jong seems to be ok.

Really hope so, that looked like one horrendous accident. Can't remember any time before when I've seen a crash like that live and onboard, in any formula.

---

Crazy crash in GP3 a few minutes ago too, fortunately nobody hurt. Another incident on the first racing lap after the SC as well!

No shortage of drama going on this weekend. Ironically, the one time there's perfect weather all weekend at Spa.

---

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2015 09:47AM by EC83.

Fractured vertebrae as it seems [www.autosport.com]


GP3 at it again, crash at Blanchimont with tyres flying across the track, scary. Is it just me or have there been way more crashes than usual in the junior series? Also talking about F3, where they seem to have at least one big wreck each round?

lol, SC just in and they wreck again.

---

Some mods
F1 1996 | F1 2002 | F1 2007 | F1 2011 | F1 2013 | F1 2015 | F1 2018



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2015 09:48AM by kedy89.

Very entertaining race. GP2 should be good too.

What a quality day of Motorsport coming up. Straight after GP2 I'll be switching over to ITV4 to catch the first BTCC Knockhill race. :D

---

I'm depending on streams here. Eurosport often broadcasts the races (GP3, FR3.5, WTCC, MotoGP, WSBK etc.) on 2, which I can't receive. Instead they show cycling or other things I don't care about on 1.


Indycar this evening too :D

---

Some mods
F1 1996 | F1 2002 | F1 2007 | F1 2011 | F1 2013 | F1 2015 | F1 2018



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2015 10:56AM by kedy89.

Apparently, according to Rob Smedley when Martin Brundle spoke to him just there, there's a possibility of rain before the end of the race... WTF? I know this is Spa, but that would be like something actually out of a script.
It would need to rain hard too, considering with the amount of heat in the track light rain would just burn straight off.

---

lol @Williams, 3xsoft 1xhard xD


Interview Vettel after the race: "The quality of the tyres is miserable."
Can't wait for the reactions on that statement :D

---

Some mods
F1 1996 | F1 2002 | F1 2007 | F1 2011 | F1 2013 | F1 2015 | F1 2018

I think Ferrari went for a risk with the long stint and it failed, I think Vettel was a bit hasty to blame Pirelli - they certainly weren't as culpable as Silverstone 2013 or anything. But with another couple of high speed tyre failures over the weekend it's certainly a bit worrying.

Very happy for Grosjean and Lotus, good to see them get a good result!

---

X (@ed24f1)

Vettel said that it wasnt a puncture and it exploded instead. i´ve always thought Pirelli is awful, but today´s thing is indeed worrying. i´d rather not blame Vettel for doing 27 laps with that tyres because, altough Pirelli said the best approach was a 2-stop strategy, hembery himself said that the primes could last 40 laps.

Aside of that, if you have worn tyres, what happened today shouldnt happen, you are supposed to only lose grip in the likes of Kimi in China 2012.

It looked like it was a completely different failure to the one which hit Rosberg, where you could clearly see the tyre starting to unravel 3 miles previous (incidentally (coincidently?) at the same corner that Vettel had gone through) but it was on the cambered side of the tyre, the other side to the tyre where Vettel's failed.

I've seen photos of tyres through Eau Rouge (the left-rear though, rather than the right-rear which failed on Rosberg and Vettel) and there's a fair bit of distortion, but tyres do that. Even with the Michelin tyre debacle of Indy 2005, the Bridgestones were distorting too, though obviously not as much: indy2005tyres.jpg (linked due to the height of the picture). In Indy it was the inside shoulder of the tyre which failed, not the carcass as was the case with Rosberg's (Vettel's looks more like it was towards the outside, which makes no sense from a load point of view).

Over all though I thought the race was @#$%&. Lots of overtaking but all of it DRS assisted and none of it interesting. Good to see Perez and Grosjean mixing it with the big boys but otherwise, for Spa especially, that was abysmal.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2015 08:46PM by gav.

Luciano Burti 2001 was a similar accident:

[www.youtube.com]

yeah the race seemed action packed but dull at the same time, which was weird.

loved Verstappen and Kvyat tho.

Vettel went off the track at Raidillon immediately before his tyre let go (as most drivers and he did multiple times throughout the race). could that tyre abuse have led to the failure?

---

RIP Jules, never to be forgotten. #KeepFightingMichael



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2015 09:11PM by Muks_C.

I think they tried to streech the tyre to the limit to gain some extra points and now they blame the tyre....

Muks_C Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> could that
> tyre abuse have led to the failure?

For F1 lovers: www.f1legendraces.com