F1 || Race 12 || Belgium Review
Source + PhotoFunia Weather Effect
There's been a 4 week gap since the last race in Hungary, allowing the teams to have a summer break and a bit of rest. Red Bull hoping that the 2nd half of the season sees them get a bit more luck having had some unfortunate accidents in the last couple of races.
The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps (or Spa as it is more commonly known) is known for its high speed corners and has recently seen some nasty accidents (in F2 in particular) including the death of Anthoine Hubert so when this happened in the Formula W race on Friday, there was obvious concern when the rain started to fall for the Formula 1.
Qualifying
The Williams team seemed to be the best prepared for the rain, heading out on Intermediate tyres in Q1 when those around them were on the Wets. All of the other drivers inevitably followed and as the track dried up, the times got quicker. The 2 Haas (unsurprisingly) and Alfa Romeos failing to get through to Q2, along with Yuki Tsunoda who's failing to live up to the high expectations I had for him in his rookie season.
Lando Norris was quick in Q1 and even quicker in Q2, topping the charts with the 2 Ferrarris failing to reach Q3, along with Latifi, Alonso and Stroll.
Then the heavy rain returned and Norris and Vettel went out for Q3. Vettel was quickly on the team radio complaining about the conditions and the dangerous conditions whilst Norris started his quick lap... (listen to the beginning and then fast forward to 1:30)...
Norris being the unfortunate driver to crash his car before the red flag came out. This chain of events being the beginning of what turned out to be a farcical weekend of Formula 1.
Qualifying did eventually take place with Verstappen taking pole, ahead of Russel. and then Verstappen.
The "Race"
As Sunday came, the rain was relentless. As the cars left the pits to go to the grid, Perez lost control and was out before the race had "begun", failing to make it to the start. More disappointment for Red Bull, missing out on a 7th place finish.
Throughout the day, the rain stayed with varying degrees of intensity - The cars went out on track a couple of times behind the safety car which was pointless in itself as it was clear that there was no chance of racing. Or at least I thought it was pointless. The FIA did enough to get be able to get a race result without a race. A day of "racing" that I simply can't understand but resulted in George Russell getting his first F1 podium of his career.
Your post is manually rewarded by the
World of Xpilar Community Curation Trail
STEEM AUTO OPERATED AND MAINTAINED BY XPILAR TEAM
Looking at the final result table, Hamilton being all time record bearer had at this time loosed form in formula 1 race, haven seen even Russell on top of him.