LEWIS'S WIN GIVEN TO MASSA
The Belgian Grand Prix is one of those events that legends are made from. History, check. Classic races, check. OK so it's not like there's much going on at the track itself but races at Spa tend to be interesting. The main focus this time around was on the Ferraris, with Raikonen falling behind in the championship battle, there was the suggestion that Massa might be given Ferrari's full backing with the reigning world champion expected to play number two. If I was a Raikonen fan then I wouldn't be too happy at that idea but the Finn couldn't complain about having Spa as a last chance saloon, he's won the last four races there and just needed to do the same again.
Qualifying turned out to be interesting given the changable weather conditions. Jenson was one of the early casualties of Q1, never really managing to get his act together and would start P17. DC did a great job in Q1 but somehow didn't manage to come up with the good in Q2, he would start P14! Massa was the first guy to set a time but he soon got overhauled, first by Kimi and then Lews toasted both Ferrari times. Massa replied by hitting the front again late on only for Lewis to burn him once again for his fifth pole of the season. So far so good given that arguably the Brit was due a win though in terms of the championship, he still didn't really need to win.
In the race, Jenson managed to avoid an early back of the grid pile up to make it into 16th. Once again banking on only one stopping his made his way up the midfield before pitting and looked to have the makings of a half decent race, helped partly by teammate Barrichello's demise. However just as Jenson was knocking on the door of the top ten the rain came down and he decided to make an extra pitstop for tyres, a gamble that in the end, didn't pay off as not everyone chose to take an extra stop. He finished 15th which wasn't what he had in mind. Apparantly the tyres in his second stint weren't the best but his performance in the early stages meant that we might yet see a good race from him.
DC had a surprisingly poor start and wound up down in 18th early on. However he did eventually make it past the Hondas and from there made it through the midfield, looking half-way competitive though it was teammate Webber that was getting all the attention. Like Jenson though, DC came in for intermediate tyres when the rain came down and that scuppered his chances of getting a particularly good result. As it was, he finished 11th and these sort of results seem to be par for the course for him. The Scot complained of poor drivability in the tricky conditions. Making up three places wasn't a bad result but DC is surely capable of better.
As per usual, all attention was on Lewis though and he held the lead early on with seemingly no competition. Plan A never works though and he went on to spin, thus allowing Raikonen past! Lewis and Kimi coming into the pits together didn't do Lewis any favours but what did help was Lewis having a better set of tyres in the second stint. So Lewis hunted down Kimi and took the lead...but cut a chicane so had to concede the position. He followed that up by retaking the lead on the next corner fair and square, surging away to take the win...only for the stewards to dump a 25 second penalty on him for the chicane incident which made no sense whatsoever. That got him demoted to 3rd.
Well with Raikonen having crashed out before the end of the race, Massa was given his second win in a row, despite having spent most of the race in a quiet third place. Another reason why Lewis's penalty makes no sense whatsoever. Heidfeld was promoted up to 2nd. McLaren are appealing against Lewis's penalty but the result of that hearing won't be untill some point after the next race in Italy. In the meantime the biggest surprise is that none of the current drivers are willing to back Lewis up. Massa's lack of sympathy is hardly surprising but Webber's cold shoulder more so. Niki Lauda, a former world champion for both Ferrari and McLaren and surely as neutral as they come, thinks the decision was rediculous! And it was. Lewis let Raikonen go after the chicane incident. McLaren doubled checked with the FIA that his later move was clean. It supposedly was. Work that one out if you can.
Still, Lewis leads the championship with 78 points though his lead has been cut to two points with five races to go. Further down, DC remains in 16th place on 6 points while even further down, Jenson falls to 18th on three points.
Comments go here
Click here to return to sports homepage
Click here to return to Matt G's homepage