Conclusions from the Belgian Grand Prix
McLaren’s Jenson Button dominated from start to finish at Spa in a race that will be remembered for a first corner accident which saw both Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso crashing out.
The 2009 World Champion led wire-to-wire and was barely threatened by second place Sebastian Vettel or third-placed Kimi Raikkonen who completed the podium. Red Bull’s double-world Vettel champion fought his way from tenth to second, largely assisted by Lotus driver Romain Grosjean who first hit Hamilton before taking out Alonso and Sauber’s Sergio Perez going into the track’s opening turn.
The 2009 World Champion led wire-to-wire and was barely threatened by second place Sebastian Vettel or third-placed Kimi Raikkonen who completed the podium. Red Bull’s double-world Vettel champion fought his way from tenth to second, largely assisted by Lotus driver Romain Grosjean who first hit Hamilton before taking out Alonso and Sauber’s Sergio Perez going into the track’s opening turn.
Here’s what the 2012 Belgian GP taught us....
- Roman Grosjean will become the first driver to be banned from an F1 race since Michael Schumacher in 1994. The Frenchman triggered a huge crash on the first lap of the Belgian race which took out three other drivers, and caused the safety car to be deployed just moments into the race.
- The Lotus driver will now miss the Italian Grand Prix at Monza next weekend.
- Alongside Grosjean and Schumacher, Mika Hakkinen, Eddie Irvine and Nigel Mansell have all incurred the wrath of the FIA for causing accidents. Grosjean’s is the first penalty since 1994 to be sanctioned as despite being initially banned from the 2009 Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso, then driving for Lotus, had his ban quashed on appeal.
- The crash ruined the race of many drivers including both Saubers. This was particularly frustrating for them as Kamui Kobayashi and Sergio Perez had achieved their personal best starting positions (second and fourth respectively), and recorded the best combined qualifying performance for the improving team.
- The Japanese driver equalled the best qualifying performance by a Sauber, which before Sunday’s race was could be attributed to Jean Alesi at the 1998 Austrian and 1999 French Grand Prix.
- Kobayashi also matched the best ever qualifying for a Japanese driver – Takuma Sato qualified second for the 2004 European Grand Prix.
- Another driver who had his race ruined was Fernando Alonso. Although the Spaniard will be cursing his luck that a first-lap crash ended his streak of 24 consecutive points finishes, he will be thankful that no serious damage was done when Grosjean’s Lotus mounted his Ferrari at the first corner. Alonso’s last non score was at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Canada last year.
- The total of four drivers being eliminated on the first lap was the most since the 2012 Japanese Grand Prix when Vitaly Petrov, Nico Hulkenberg, Felipe Messa, Vinantonio Liuzzi and Lucas di Grassi all retired on the opening lap at Suzuka.
- Jenson Button continued to prove his worth as an employee of McLaren. The pole at Spa was his first for the British team, in his fiftieth appearance.
- He now has eight career poles, as many as John Surtees and Riccardo Patrese. Button also became the seventh different pole sitter this season.
- The British driver converted the pole position into his 14th career win, and his first at Spa-Francorchamps, becoming the first driver to lead every lap of a race this year. Button now has as many wins as fellow world champions Graham Hill, Jack Brabham and Emerson Fittipaldi.
- Bruno Senna prevented Button from recording a pole-race win-fastest lap combo, by setting the pace for the rest of the grid. This was the young driver’s first ever fastest lap as an F1 driver. The Brazilian became the ninth different driver to set a fastest lap this year in twelve races.
- Button’s win means that McLaren have scored points in the last 50 consecutive races – the entire duration of the Brit assembled combo involving Hamilton which was created after the race winner’s move from Brawn. If they continue this success in the next six races they’ll beat Ferrari’s record of consecutive points finishes, although this record mostly covers races where points only went to the top six.
- This was Button’s first pole since 2009 in Monaco and he has pole positions with four different constructors (BAR, Honda, Brawn and McLaren).
- This was the 75th GP victory for McLaren-Mercedes, and the first time a team has won two races in a row this year.
- For third place Kimi Raikkonen this was the first time he has finished a Belgian Grand Prix in any position other than first. He was however classified in 18th back in 2008 having crashed with two laps to go.
- Raikkonen also became the first driver this season to score a podium from third on the grid this season. He and Jenson Button were the only drivers on the grid to score points from starting positions inside the top eight.
- This was Kimi’s sixth podium of the year, but he is yet to record a race victory. That means that if he doesn’t pick up a win this year, he will have the most podiums in one season without a win since he scored six podiums in 2006 but didn’t win a single race. The record for most podiums without a win in a season is ten – Button in 2004 and Barrichello in 2001.
- Niko Hulkenberg achieved his highest race finish to date by securing fourth place. Both Toro Rosso drivers equalled their previous best finishes of eighth (Jean-Eric Vergne) and ninth (Daniel Ricciardo).
- In his two races at Spa, Roman Grosjean has an unfortunate record of causing a lap one collision that has eliminated Lewis Hamilton and the championship leader from the race.
- Alonso’s retirement leaves only Raikkonen, Rosberg and Webber without a retirement. The Australian did however find himself lapped at the Spanish Grand Prix meaning that only two drivers have completed every F1 lap this year.
- No German driver started the race from inside the top nine positions. This is the first time this has happened since the 2003 Japanese GP when Heidfeld (11th), Frentzen (12th), M.Schumacher (14th) and R.Schumacher (19th) were all outside the first five rows of the grid.
- Although Red Bull, Mclaren and Lotus are leading the constructor’s championship, this is the very first time these three teams have been on the podium together this season.
- Despite his crash on lap one Fernando Alonso has scored more points this season than Massa has scored since the Brazilian Grand Prix in 2010.
- Pastor Maldonado was in trouble with the stewards once again picking up three penalties in one weekend. This takes his total to nine for the season. Here is his list of penalised offences:
Race
Bahrain Monaco Monaco Canada Europe Hungary Belgium Belgium Belgium |
Penalty
Five-place grid drop Ten-place grid drop Five-place grid drop Five-place grid drop 20-seconds added to race time Drive through Three-place grid drop Five-place grid drop for Italy Five-place grid drop for Italy |
Incident
Gearbox change Collision with Perez in P2 Gearbox change Gearbox change Collision with Hamilton Collision with Di Resta Impeding Hulkenberg in Q1 Jump start Causing a collision with Glock |