Belgian Grand Prix

[AleHop 0]

I love it when people think like that

I love it when people think like that

[Quiet One 15]

I heard he lives in Spain most of the time. Ibizzza!

You're right Andrés, qualifying makes no sense but great job Maldonado, Pérez and Kobayashi.

Ah...that explains his Spanish.

Weird qualy. It was like being transported into some parallell universe where everything is possible and your weirdest fantasies will come true.

And even there Massa sucks.

[JHS18 0]

Oh man, how much I'd love to see both Sauber drivers get onto the podium tomorrow. What a mixed up qualifying session.

Should be a great race.

Even better if it rains.

[Massa 0]

Kobayashi and Maldonado have a ton to prove tomorrow given their starting positions. Both have talent, neither have the full package, or the right skills, for a higher-tier team. Put in some normal, disciplined races, value starts going up. Tomorrow is a good place to start on that.

[Ikyrotz 0]

Apparently stewards are investigating whether Kimi took a shortcut through Eau Rouge. Not clear to me, though, how you could cut that corner...

[Massa 0]

Maldonado got a three-position blocking penalty. He drops to sixth, so right now Räikkönen is third, unless he gets the aforementioned penalty, Pérez is fourth, and Alonso is fifth.

Slightly off-topic, but strange to see that 100% of F1 fans currently living in Massachusetts, all two of us, post on this forum.

[Massa 0]

I don't follow any drivers on Twitter, just not interesting to me, but someone I do follow was saying something about Lewis Hamilton tweeting that Jenson Button got a wing update worth half a second on the straight, but Hamilton did not get the update. Apparently that tweet got deleted, or I'm not looking hard enough, or it never existed. It would make no sense to me to give the upgrade to the guy who isn't really in contention, so I was curious if anyone heard about that.

[Ikyrotz 0]

Maldonado got a three-position blocking penalty. He drops to sixth, so right now Räikkönen is third, unless he gets the aforementioned penalty, Pérez is fourth, and Alonso is fifth.

No penalty for Kimi; while he was deemed to have been outside the track, it was seen that he was slower during those laps when that happened than on the laps it didn't, so no penalty was awarded.

Slightly off-topic, but strange to see that 100% of F1 fans currently living in Massachusetts, all two of us, post on this forum.

A few years back I met someone here who does follow F1, I guess it must've been you!

[Quiet One 15]

Two persons in America living close to each other and actually following F1?

Quick! Move the CotA over there!

[Quiet One 15]

I don't follow any drivers on Twitter, just not interesting to me, but someone I do follow was saying something about Lewis Hamilton tweeting that Jenson Button got a wing update worth half a second on the straight, but Hamilton did not get the update. Apparently that tweet got deleted, or I'm not looking hard enough, or it never existed. It would make no sense to me to give the upgrade to the guy who isn't really in contention, so I was curious if anyone heard about that.

http://planetf1.com/news/3213/8041360/Hamilton-Undone-By-Old-Wing

[Ikyrotz 0]

Two Americans living close to each other and actually following F1?

Quick! Move the CotA over there!

Well, I'm not American ;P, that would be my wife who always refers to F1 as "that ****ing NASCAR".

[Quiet One 15]

Well, I'm not American ;P, that would be my wife who always refers to F1 as "that ****ing NASCAR".

Yeah, I realized it after I posted that is why I edited it

[Massa 0]

http://planetf1.com/...one-By-Old-Wing

Thanks.

Sounds, unsurprisingly, a lot less controversial than people were making it out to be.

[Quiet One 15]

So...it's Maldonado and Hamilton together again...all the way to La Source...

Alonso must make one of his famous blitzering stats unless he wants to get caught between those!

Again a nice train on the clean side of the starting grid: Kimi, Alonso, Lewis.

DoD will be De la Rosa, no matter what happens on Sunday. He beat the fastest guy on P1 by almost half a second. Take that, Pic!

[Quiet One 15]

"If we want to win the championship we need to be quicker and improve the car. That's the only answer we have now and our maximum concentration and effort is to do so. It's true that without the perfect car we have had good races and good points but we know it will be difficult to continue like this forever. Everything went well after qualifying but we need to keep working hard to improve the situation."

You can accuse Nando of being whatever you want except being unrealistic.

[JHS18 0]

I've no idea why anyone watches qualifying any more. Because you can almost guarantee that whatever the times are at the end of the session, that WON'T be the way the grid forms up on Sunday.

Penalties for Maldonado, Webber, Rosberg, Kimi was under investigation.

Oh dear.

[freaky2 1]

But we already knew about Webber and Rosberg ahead of qualy, that's no big deal. And they haven't penalised Kimi which means that they are only being fair

(it's just a joke, I swear!)

[Quiet One 15]

I've no idea why anyone watches qualifying any more. Because you can almost guarantee that whatever the times are at the end of the session, that WON'T be the way the grid forms up on Sunday.

Penalties for Maldonado, Webber, Rosberg, Kimi was under investigation.

Oh dear.

You point being...

- Guys should use broken gearboxes?

- Blocking is great, the fact that you complained about Narain blocking other drivers before being just a misunderstanding because you actually don't like his helmet design, not against the concept of blocking at all?

- Track layout should be considered merely a rough guideline on what's the best way to get from start to finish?

[Rainmaster 7]

I don't see any issue with the penalties given. It's a big track, plenty of space for Maldonado to get out the way and gear box penalties (Webber and Rosberg), annoying as they are, are necessary.

Hamilton chose the slower wing so he can't complain too much. Although apparently he did go on some kind of rant on Twitter, profanity included, and now deleted.

[Quiet One 15]

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/102137

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/102152

Compare those two articles to notice the difference. Nothing too big (well, had it be Alonso everybody would be jumping on "he blames the team! He is no team player! ARGGGGHHH" ) but it shows how frustrated they were. I thought the difference between Jenson and Lewis was because of some sort of contrived team strategy but it seems it was genuine qualy pace.

Those are the kind of mistakes you cannot afford to make this season. Any other season would have been a minor setback, this year these are championship turning points. A 9/10 won't do this year. You need at least a 9.5/10 to remain competitive. That is also why Alonso is so vocal about the car's slowness. He knows they can't count on the other guys mistakes, because they will also sooner or later make their own.

A fascinating season, and unpredictable precisely because it demands so much from each driver/team.

[JHS18 0]

You point being...

- Guys should use broken gearboxes?

- Blocking is great, the fact that you complained about Narain blocking other drivers before being just a misunderstanding because you actually don't like his helmet design, not against the concept of blocking at all?

- Track layout should be considered merely a rough guideline on what's the best way to get from start to finish?

No, but just for once it'd be nice to watch a qualifying session and know, okay that's the way they'll form up, instead of having loads of penalties. Pretty sure it never used to be this bad.

How do you think the sport looks to casual fans when you can watch a qualifying session, go away, and then have to go through the amendments for seemingly the rest of time?

It's just annoying really. I can't argue against the penalties given as they are the rules, just state that it'd be better if it didn't happen. And there's no set penalty either it seems. It's what, 5 places for a gearbox change, 3 places for blocking, put to the back of the grid for a fuel irregularity? There's not much consistency, and my point was more on the basis that if I was a casual observer, I'd really find it difficult to understand why these guys got penalties in the first place, and how they came to that conclusion.

[Massa 0]

The FIA's Formula One stewards are the highest quality in the world of racing as I know it. I've never seen a better officiated series in my life. If the guys keep breaking the rules, the results will keep changing. It's easy to be upset with the FIA for investigating things and penalizing violations they find, but they wouldn't do that if everyone followed their rules. And if everyone followed their rules, it wouldn't be racing anymore, so nothing you can do there.

[Quiet One 15]

No, but just for once it'd be nice to watch a qualifying session and know, okay that's the way they'll form up, instead of having loads of penalties. Pretty sure it never used to be this bad.

How do you think the sport looks to casual fans when you can watch a qualifying session, go away, and then have to go through the amendments for seemingly the rest of time?

It's just annoying really. I can't argue against the penalties given as they are the rules, just state that it'd be better if it didn't happen. And there's no set penalty either it seems. It's what, 5 places for a gearbox change, 3 places for blocking, put to the back of the grid for a fuel irregularity? There's not much consistency, and my point was more on the basis that if I was a casual observer, I'd really find it difficult to understand why these guys got penalties in the first place, and how they came to that conclusion.

Ahhh, now that's something I could agree with. Although it is not actually applicable to this case, I do agree that there are way too many rules, though not as much as we think as it is still probably more understandable than baseball, and if Eric can understand baseball then it must not be so difficult to understand F1

Fewer rules would be great, but it is not simple in a sport like F1 to mess with them without risking some great inbalance.

Nonetheless, worth a try.

[Quiet One 15]

Not sure if anybody recalls this moment but I was watching the highlights of qualy and there was this time when Perez is for some reason almost stopped at the pit exit (with green light) and some marshall nearby. Lewis is exiting at full speed (with the speed limiter on, of course) and he goes to the right to avoid Perez in a sudden manoeuvre that makes the marshall jump out of the way for his life.

Now, I am not claiming for a penalty for Lewis or nothing like that, but it is strange that no investigation from the stewards was informed. It seemed VERY dangerous. No idea who is to blame: why was Perez almost stopped at the pitlane exit with green lights??? Why was that guy out there? Why did Lewis almost collect the guy? In any case the 3 of them were part on something that could very well have ended up in a tragedy, either a 2 car crash or a guy ran over. Yet there was no mention of it.

Again, I don't have any idea if some punishment was due or if some rule was brreached, but it should at least be analyzed because was the only actually dangerous situation that happened and they should at least find ways to avoid such situations in the future (e.g.: "guys, do not stop at pitlane exit just because" "guys, you should not think that having the right to ovetake another car takes precedence over obvious safety concerns" "marshals, don't be stupid and stay away from traffic")

[Rainmaster 7]

I'd forgotten about that, but I think it was the second time this season (the other being the marshals collecting debris without a safety car in Valencia(?)) that seemed really dangerous yet nobody commented on (nobody in this case being news sites and commentators at the time).