F1 - Spa Qualifying 23 Aug 2014 21:30 AEST ONE HD

[gary]

Coverage of the Qualifying session for Spa is this Saturday starting at
21:30 AEST on ONE.

Coverage of the race itself on Sunday begins at 21:40 AEST on TEN.

Practice 1 gets underway in around 30 minutes time.

Rain is expected on Saturday and cloudy but fine predicted for the race.

In other news, controversy surrounds Red Bull signing up Max Verstappen
for the Torro Ross team in 2015. Verstappen is 16 now and will be 17 next
year, making him the youngest driver to be given an F1 start.

A karting champion, 2014 is his first year in F3 and he has won 8 out
of 27 races.

As Adrian Sutil noted, starting so young in an F1 car may actually be a risk
to Verstappen's career if he fails to be competitive against more
experienced drivers. Time will tell.

[photosinferno (John)]

I for one can't wait for this race - best track of the season
thanks for the TV times info

[gary]

Wow!!! (Heart still pounding)

[astroron (Ron)]

Originally Posted by gary

Wow!!! (Heart still pounding)

Yep, The race had nearly everything.
Oh to be a fly on the wall in the Mercedes debriefing room tonight
Sparks are going to fly.
Enjoyed all the jockying and and overtaking moves even though some came to grief.
Cheers

[Exfso (Peter)]

Oh yeah, what a ripper. Not saying the result, but it was not expected on a track suited to the Mercedes.

[gary]

Originally Posted by astroron

Oh to be a fly on the wall in the Mercedes debriefing room tonight
Sparks are going to fly.

Hi Ron,

You are right!

One account of the events that took place in that meeting has been
given by Lewis Hamilton and appears in the Sydney Morning Herald
today under the headline :-

"Lewis Hamilton says Nico Rosberg admitted
the crash at Belgian Grand Prix was deliberate".



Caution for those who have may have recorded the race but not watched it yet. May contain spoilers :-

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/motorspo...#ixzz3BMZ7uxuw

Plenty of good additional material for authors of books about the "Great Rosberg-Hamilton Rivalry of 2014".

[gary]

Andrew Benson over at the BBC is saying that :-

Originally Posted by Andrew Benson

Nico Rosberg could face punishment from Formula 1 bosses after Lewis Hamilton said the German admitted to deliberately colliding with him.

Perhaps trying to avoid an "own goal" for the team, Benson reports Toto
Wolf as saying Rosberg's comments were misinterpreted :-

Originally Posted by Toto Wolf in article by Andrew Benson BBC

"Nico felt he needed to hold his line. He needed to make a point and for Lewis it was clearly not him who needed to be aware of Nico.

"(Rosberg) didn't give in. He thought it was for Lewis to leave him space and that Lewis didn't leave him space.

"So they agreed to disagree in a very heated discussion among ourselves, but it wasn't deliberately crashing. That is nonsense.

See http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/28922696

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by gary

Wow!!! (Heart still pounding)

SPOILER ALERT:











How good is Dan the Man?!

[gary]

Originally Posted by julianh72

SPOILER ALERT:

How good is xxxxxxx the Man?!

Hi Julian,

No doubt about it. He is The Man.

I had one eye on the screen and one eye on the live timing app.

In those last laps, The Man was getting nearly equivalent timing in
Sector 1 compared to the guy chasing him and that section
includes Eau Rouge and the long super-fast Kemmel Straight.

Where it was edge-of-the-seat stuff was the chasing guy would,
perhaps surprisingly, pick up a couple of seconds in Sector 2,
which is that winding section at the back of the track starting from
Les Combes and where they come down the hill to Stavelot.

Why I raise that was that the commenters mentioned there had been
a change to The Man's front wing where it had been trimmed and
so it seems its straight line speed has been improved but at the
expense of cornering perhaps.

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Originally Posted by gary

Why I raise that was that the commenters mentioned there had been
a change to The Man's front wing where it had been trimmed and
so it seems its straight line speed has been improved but at the
expense of cornering perhaps.

Red Bull were running a MUCH smaller rear wing ("Low Down-Force") than most of the other teams, but I'm not sure how much smaller their front wing was than normal - check out this shot, for example:
http://www.formula1.com/wi/gi/597x47...s1424au257.jpg

Their strategy was to minimise their straight-line speed disadvantage compared to the Mercedes-powered cars on the high-speed Spa circuit, but amazingly, they weren't just minimising their speed disadvantage, they were actually just about the fastest cars out there! The Red Bull chassis has such good balance and "mechanical grip" that even with the big penalty on down-force, they weren't giving too much away on the twisty bits either. Adrian Newey is a racing car genius - it will be interesting to see how Red Bull cope next year when he steps back from F1.

I expect to see the Red Bulls with a similar ultra-low-down-force configuration at Monza in two weeks ...

[Retrograde (Pete)]

Originally Posted by julianh72

I expect to see the Red Bulls with a similar ultra-low-down-force configuration at Monza in two weeks ...

At Monza everyone will likely be running an ultra-low downforce configuration so it will be interesting to see how the Red-Bull cars compare speed wise.

[gary]

Originally Posted by julianh72

Red Bull were running a MUCH smaller rear wing ("Low Down-Force") than most of the other teams, but I'm not sure how much smaller their front wing was than normal - check out this shot, for example:
http://www.formula1.com/wi/gi/597x47...s1424au257.jpg

Their strategy was to minimise their straight-line speed disadvantage compared to the Mercedes-powered cars on the high-speed Spa circuit, but amazingly, they weren't just minimising their speed disadvantage, they were actually just about the fastest cars out there!

...

Hi Julian,

Ah, that's what it is!

Thank you very much for this insight and for taking the time to share it which is really appreciated.

So onto Monza we go.

[astroron (Ron)]

A great oppinion piece by David Coulthard
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/formula1/28928608
Cheers

[Kunama]

Now if CH could just convince SV to help DR maximise his results DR could be in a very good position to take the Mercs on by the end of the year.