Belgian Grand Prix Review

Spa-Francorchamps is just so unique on the calendar. No sense of an autodrome here; with the old Hockenheim gone, Spa is the last remaining track where there's a sense of racing off into the countryside before returning back to town once every six or seven kilometres. Its elevation changes, long straights and stunning sweepers make it a place where F1 cars can stretch their legs, and both driver and machine can demonstrate the full extent of their capabilities.

And then there's Spa's infamous micro-climate. Brazil is the only other stop on the world tour where the weather can be so unpredictable. This year, the Ardennes struck again on the Saturday, after Kimi Raikkonen had made his form clear by clocking the fastest time the day before. How long has it been - if it has ever occurred before - since a practice session was cancelled because of fog, as Saturday's first free practice was? Add to that the second session was shortened to around 15 minutes only.

With the rain playing its on-again, off-again games come pre-qualifying and qualifying proper, there was little to read into the grid, except that while Bridgestone still hold a big advantage when it comes to wet-weather tyres, as amply demonstrated by the form of the Saubers, Michelin have definitely made some gains. Jarno Trulli and Fernando Alonso claimed a 1-3 for Renault, and Raikkonen may have been in with a shout for pole had he not gone too deep into the revised Bus Stop chicane.

Spa is also special because only Monaco has a tighter start-finish straight, and La Source is potentially the most drama-inducing first corner in F1. And so it proved again in 2004. Whilst the Renaults got the jump on Schumi and David Coulthard also sliced down the inside of the Ferrari, the headaches began just behind them. Cars trying to funnel themselves through what is essentially a hairpin four, even five abreast is always going to be a recipe for mayhem.

It started with two incidents that happened virtually alongside each other. Mark Webber has clearly been playing Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix 2/3/4 with car damage off, for there is no greater joy in those games than to blast past half the field going into La Source, and then use a hapless rival as a brake. That's exactly what Mark did from his fine 7th on the grid, but in punting Rubens Barrichello, he knocked his front wing off, loosened Rubens' rear wing, and looked like destroying both their races. (In Webber's defence, he at least admitted his mistake afterwards, instead of playing the usual F1-driver game of blame-anyone-but-me.)

Beside them, Raikkonen and Felipe Massa both realised at the same time that they were going in too deep, too wide, too locked up, and too close to each other, resulting in the Brazilian also losing his front wing, while further back Juan-Pablo Montoya nudged Jenson Button into the back of Massa, the Williams sustaining a chipped nose and the BAR breaking his front wing as well. Heidfeld then ran over debris and damaged his front section too. Oh to have been a front wing collector at La Source this year!

F1 cars teeter on the edge of adhesion at Eau Rouge, held to the track by all the aerodynamic and mechanical grip they can generate. Webber came into the downhill plunge at unabated speed, slowed to keep his car from understeering off as they started going uphill, and momentarily forced Takuma Sato to take evasive action. The Japanese driver had started 15th, but by this stage was already up to 7th or 8th and thinking his Christmases had come early.

Now he found himself trying to go around the outside of the Jaguar on the last left kink of Eau Rouge, with Montoya trying to go around the outside of both of them! Webber's front right was inevitably going to clip Sato's rear left. Taku was lucky not to get T-boned by any of the following cars as he spun out. Gianmaria Bruni slowed and got pitched into the wall by Minardi team-mate Zsolt Baumgartner, before Pantano lazily ran into Bruni's stricken car, got out, and clasped his hands like an Italian drama queen.

One can understand a Grand Prix racer's competitive instincts, and the red mist that descends when the visor comes down, but you couldn't help but think that all this was avoidable if Webber had only braked earlier into La Source, and gone into Eau Rouge with a little more caution, off the racing line, as befitting his wounded state. For hitting two of his competitors within a few hundred yards, and causing the bedlam on the run to Radillon, Mark gets our 'Reject of the Race' award for the second time in 2004.

The return to green flag conditions then set the scene for the rest of the race. Schumi's first flying lap was four seconds slower than the Renaults; if Bridgestone has had a weakness this year, it is in getting them up to optimal operating temperatures and pressures. Michael got swamped by Raikkonen in the move that effectively decided the outcome of the race, and then got done by Montoya going around the outside going into the Bus Stop in one of the cleverest passing moves of the year.

Now this was getting interesting. Trulli was leading Alonso in a Renault 1-2, but how long would it last? Jarno and his team are on each other's noses at the moment - all the hugging and smiling for the cameras after qualifying can't fool us! The Italian came in first, which effectively handed the initiative, as well as track position, to his team-mate anyway, but Fernando was soon to disappear when an oil leak sprayed fluid onto his rear tyres, inducing two spins that put him out of the race.

So it was left to Trulli to defend Renault's 2nd place in the constructors' title, but from here his inexorable slide to an eventual 9th, out of the points, was astounding. Though Jarno blamed his dreadfully slow second stint on a loose back end and a dud set of tyres, there seemed to be more than a touch of the Trulli Mid-Race Falling Asleep Syndrome at play here; he was telling the world that he couldn't care less. He hasn't scored in four races now, and is fast undoing all his good work from the first half of the season.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Mark Webber
Late breaking into La Source triggered first lap mess

At the start of the year, everyone would have laughed if someone had suggested that, going into Belgium, Trulli would be the only non-Michael winner this season. At mid-season, everyone would also have laughed if someone proposed that the next non-Michael winner would be a McLaren driver. Such have been the woes on the part of both McLaren and Mercedes-Ilmor, their dominantly strong performance this weekend is a huge credit to them both.

McLaren are now only 5 points shy of 4th in the constructors' title, and Williams are looking like sitting ducks. The margin would have decreased even more if DC did not have such an eventful outing. His tyre failure was the first of three prominent ones for Michelin during this race, but it's easy to forget that it was also a Michelin tyre failure that caused Toyota tester Ryan Briscoe's spectacular shunt at Eau Rouge during Friday second free practice. Something clearly went awry in the Bibendum camp this weekend.

Late in the race, Coulthard of course also tangled with Christian Klien's Jaguar, clipping the wall as his front wing sliced off his aerial and camera and perched on his rear wing. Ron Dennis actually wanted DC to retire, fearing both that the Scot had suffered more than just cosmetic damage, and that he might spread further debris that could in turn affect Raikkonen. His displeasure as David pitted with every intention of continuing was obvious, but in the end it meant 7th place and two more points, so no complaints, really.

Juan-Pablo clearly must have thought, if it had worked once on Michael of all people, then surely the same move would work on Trulli too. The difference though is that Michael is smart and mature enough to know that points are at stake even if someone has you well beaten, and he cares enough to consider every point valuable. Jarno in an apathetic state is a different proposition altogether. In hindsight, you sort of expected him to thoughtlessly close the door on the Williams.

In the other Williams, it was heartbreak for Antonio Pizzonia. After an unimpressive Saturday, when he crashed in free practice and proved slow in the wet, he survived the first lap melee and was elevated to third by the Montoya-Trulli incident. Jungle Boy seemed to be holding his own against JPM, so much so that, when the second safety car came out, he looked set to even challenge Michael, if not Kimi, with a podium finish almost assured.

But his gearbox had other ideas, and if Ralf Schumacher does return at Monza and Pizzonia never finds another F1 drive, then it has consigned him to Reject status. I presume that's not the reason for his tears, though, as he stepped from his stricken car. After being thrashed by Webber last year at Jaguar, up to this point he was still yet to really prove himself as a plausible front-runner, but his efforts on Sunday went some way to erasing those doubts. But imagine what Webber might have done in the FW26...

The magnitude of his achievement, however, was diminished somewhat by the fact that he did not win here at Spa, plus the sheer superiority of his Ferrari compared to the inferiority of his rivals this year. It is difficult to remember when Michael last passed someone for position on the track and not in the pits. But that is not to take away from the undeniable brilliance of both the man and his team, which has been writ very large as 2004 has progressed. In time, the greatness of their accomplishments will sink in.

The third major Michelin tyre failure in this race of course befell Button in spectacular fashion approaching Les Combes, the BAR taking out Baumgartner's Minardi in the process. As many have noted, had Zsolt not been there, then Jenson would have had a very nasty face full of armco, so perhaps for the first time we should be thankful that a Minardi got in the way. But all jokes aside, BAR lost a terrific opportunity to further narrow the gap to Renault in their tilt for an incredible 2nd in the constructors' title.

Pizzonia aside, the other story of heartbreak was of course Zonta, who from last on the grid had kept his nose clean throughout and was staring at a 4th place finish during the last safety car period. It would have been the Brazilian's - and Toyota's - best ever finish, but for the red-and-white's first race engine failure all season. Having said that, it would also have been a rather fortunate result, so Ricardo's claim to a race seat next year would probably not have been strengthened all that much.

By default, Klien is easily the best of the 2004 rookies, though up to this point, apart from some stupid moments, all he has shown is that he is capable of bringing his car home. But in a race of attrition like this one, that can prove extremely valuable, and three points for 6th is a just reward. Don't forget that, since Monza 2002 when Eddie Irvine came 3rd, 6th is the best Jaguar has managed to achieve, four times for Webber and now once for Klien. It lifted Jaguar into double-digits, and up to 7th on the table.

After the race, some (like us, earlier!) were pondering where Webber would have finished if even Klien came 6th, but that is a really redundant hypothetical question. Had Mark not caused all the first lap contretemps, the race may well have taken a much different shape anyway. Perhaps it's more fitting for people like Heidfeld and Jordan to wonder what kind of points they could have picked up on a day like this, were it not for a number of maladies that left the German trailing dead last, four laps behind by race's end.

And Minardi too, especially in Baumgartner's case, and to a lesser extent Bruni as well, had the Italian not been fairly innocently involved in the first lap shunt. These are the races Minardi dream of, and it's doubly disappointing when they can't capitalise through no fault of their own. But with the news that they have signed an engine deal with Cosworth in 2005 to get the same specification motors as Jaguar (Ford?), perhaps slightly brighter days are just around the corner. For their sake, one can only hope so.