Yahoo News Belgian Grand Prix Review: Lewis Hamilton's record weekend eclipsed by Force India meltdown
In sport, it’s not always about the winner; it’s not even always about who performed best.
The 1980 FA Cup final was defined by a single, cynical tackle which denied a young Paul Allen the chance to go down in cup history with a winning goal. John McEnroe and Jimmy Connors took tennis to a whole new level of grudginess two years later, in a Chicago exhibition match that saw the pair square up good and proper.
The 2017 Belgian Grand Prix should have been about Lewis Hamilton winning his 200th F1 race in style but his efforts were eclipsed by the growing rancour between the two pilots in pink at Force India.
Not so pretty in pink
Aaaaahahahahahahaha, Force India. So much potential, so much impressive stuff, so much silly.
Mostly, so much silly.
Sergio Perez is a man whose talents have all too often been eclipsed by his hot-headedness. There are those who suspect he’d have long exited Formula 1 if it wasn’t for the £10million-plus in sponsorship he brings to his team.
His current team-mate, the talented youngster Esteban Ocon, is undoubtedly one of them.
The pair have bumped wheels on more than one occasion but the 2017 Belgian Grand Prix took things to a whole new level – and it could have ended very badly indeed.
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In the opening stint, the Force India pair went three-abreast with Nico Hulkenberg in the approach to Eau Rouge, and Ocon ended up being squeezed into the wall by Perez.
Later, Perez took responsibility for the bump but, to be fair, it could have gone down as a racing incident, especially as even Ocon told reporters he was ‘prepared to accept’ it.
However, by lap 28, the wheels were starting to come off good and proper at Force India.
Perez, who’d clearly been to the Stupid Shop for supplies this weekend, had received a five-second penalty for gaining an advantage by leaving the track, and Force India pitted him early to get the penalty out of the way.
That had the unintended effect of allowing him to undercut Ocon, who was miffed, to say the least, and let his team know in no uncertain terms.
Shortly afterwards, coming out of La Source, Ocon closed on Perez and saw his chance to right his team’s wrong with a cheeky overtake.
As Ocon he began to draw alongside him, Perez slowly drifted to the right, squeezing him into that same wall from earlier and wrecking his front wing.
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Perez picked up a puncture in the process, and both Force Indias tumbled down the leaderboard. While Ocon recovered to finish a modest ninth, Perez was retired a few laps from the end.
Force India lost a pile of points in the process and the drivers will now be banned from racing one another. Let’s see how that goes…
Full disclosure: Force India may have picked up the Ass Award in Belgium but their problems were the most entertaining thing at Spa. So, a special thank you to Perez and co for brightening up a so-so Sunday afternoon.
Aaaaahahahahahahaha, Force India.
Just the two of us
For fans of Michael Schumacher, the weekend was more emotional than most.
Schumacher made his debut at Spa-Francorchamps in 1991, and this year was the 25th anniversary of his first grand prix victory.
That win also took place at Spa, just a year after the young German’s arrival on the F1 scene.
Fast-forward to 2017 and Spa was, then, an appropriate venue for Lewis Hamilton to equal Schumi’s record of 68 pole positions.
It was a big weekend for Hamilton in other ways – this was his 200th grand prix. Schumacher won his 200th grand prix, in Spain, in 2004 – a year in which he finished first in 13 out of 18 races.
Likewise, Hamilton drove a flawless weekend to ensure he, too, won his 200th grand prix.
Sebastian Vettel was never far from Hamilton’s gearbox, though, the Ferrari giving TV viewers a reason to stay tuned in as the front of the field processed around in a dull, orderly fashion (midway down the field, there was plenty of action but you wouldn’t have seen much of that if you were plonked in front of the telly).
Yes, Hamilton had some gripes about being stuck driving slowly behind the safety car, and Ferrari looked to have a useful tyre advantage as the race progressed but, in the end, Hamilton drove the sort of race that wins championships – lacking in drama, holding off his title challenger fairly comfortably and dominating the entire weekend (Force India shenanigans notwithstanding).
There are now only seven points between Hamilton and Vettel and, with the next race being Merc-friendly Monza, it seems likely that gap will grow even closer… sorry, Ferrari fans, but it will make the Monza admission price worth it.
Don’t stop believin’
Raikkonen was playing his role of rear-gunner to Vettel when he failed to slow for double-yellow flags, triggered when Max Verstappen’s car expired yet again.
The trackside warning lights were clear enough, even if the yellow alert light on his steering wheel was late triggering, and Raikkonen had no excuse, despite his protestations.
But it’s fair to say most of us were surprised when stewards hit him with a ten-second stop-go penalty for the infraction… that’s the same penalty Vettel got for ramming Hamilton while behind the safety car in Baku.
The safety car period triggered later by Perez brought Raikkonen back into contention and he scraped a fourth-place finish, as Bottas spluttered around behind him in the second Mercedes.
But that stop-go penalty still left a bad taste. If you drive too fast on the motorway, you’ll get fined and points. If you cause a crash, you’ll be in a whole lot more bother.
It should be the same in F1 – the application of penalties has been deeply unsatisfactory for too long, despite the fact that F1 stewards have more information available to them than, quite probably, judges in any other sport.
Still, there was an upside to Kimi’s penalty…
Make me smile
Another weekend, another unlikely podium for Daniel Ricciardo.
As his team mate Verstappen retired for the sixth time this season, Ricciardo took advantage of the mishaps and under-performance around him to come home third, despite his Red Bull being rapid enough for a fifth-place finish at most.
He spent most of his time on the podium conducting the crowd and was the second-most entertaining driver at Spa.
The most entertaining, well, that was Fernando Alonso, for all the wrong reasons, again.
Despite managing to breeze past a Renault on lap two, during a cracking three-way tussle with Ocon and Hulkenberg, Alonso was soon back to his moany self on lap six, rebuking his engineer when the poor man had the temerity to give Alonso information about the gap between him and the drivers around him.
Alonso responded: ‘I really don’t care about the gaps, this is just a test.’
He snapped again on lap 17, telling his engineer: ‘No more radio for the rest of the race.’
We get it, he’s a cracking driver handicapped by a crappy engine. But the same applies to everyone on his team … it must suck doubly for them, having to deal with both a recalcitrant Honda power unit and a recalcitrant Alonso mouth unit.
Both Alonso and Verstappen face similar problems – each is being held back by mechanical woes and neither has an obvious team to move to.
Verstappen is already in the third-fastest team, and Ferrari already have their drivers sorted for the foreseeable future. Would Mercedes want Hamilton rattled by Verstappen’s attitude?
As for Alonso, Neither Merc nor Ferrari want him, Red Bull already have an ace line-up (Verstappen’s grumbles notwithstanding) and no other outfit looks like it will be challenging for the title any time soon.
Alonso dropped yet more hints after the race that he’s not long for McLaren if things don’t change on the engine front but that’s hardly news these days. He is in danger of going down in history as the grumpiest old man ever to grace F1.
Well, I suppose it’s a title of sorts.
Next stop Monza, in just a few days, with Merc the favourites to win and Alonso the favourite to lose his rag. Plus ça change, as they say…
