Notes from the 2009 F1 Grand Prix in Belgium

Notes taken during the SPEED TV broadcast of the Formula 1 ING Belgian Grand Prix, Spa-Franchorchamps, Belgium, Aug. 30, 2009.

Welcome to SPAAAAAA. One of the most beloved courses on the F1 calendar. The roads between Spa and Franchorchamps in Belgium have been on the F1 calendar since the whole thing started in 1950. Not only is the layout fast, but the crazy weather in area usually throws something nutty in as well.

pressdog beer of the race has to be Stella Artois. Is it just me or are there bout 198 Belgian beers? Maybe a bunch of them are just "Belgian style." Anyway, Stella is always good and a big hit with the ladies, from what I can tell.

Holy stroke inducer! Giancarlo Fisichella of back-marker Force India is on the pole. WTF? Satan shops for a space heater. That's insane. Points leader Jenson Button did not advance out of Q2. Teammate Rubens Barrichello of Brawn GP starts P4.

Steve Matchett, F1 technophile, says Toyota may need a win this year to remain in F1. Jarno Trulli starts P2, so this may be there chance.

Big crowd at Spa. Bob Varsha, booth stallion, tells us that maybe the crowd is up because people bought tickets to see Michael Schumacher before Mike had to bail out of his relief stint for Felipe Massa. Schumacher tried to fill in, but an old neck injury prevented him. So Luca Boeder is in that seat, but will almost surely be replaced next week by someone else due to dismal preformances, maybe Fisichella.

Down to the grid walk with Peter Windsor. He's with Force India's Adrian Sutil who starts P11. Now he's with Fernando Alonso who says people were quicker than expected. Hes talking to Timo Glock, Paddy Lane from McLaren, Sebastien Buemi. Pete is fully deployed. 

Racing Per Matchett -- It's a festival of carbon fiber! Steve takes us in the carbon fiber fabrication area of Red Bull. Interesting. The stuff comes in sheets and you layer them on top of each other in the desired shape and thickness. Then you bake it under high pressure to get the final, single-piece product. A constructor in F1 is a literal term, they all make their cars from scratch, pretty much by hand. Some 80 people work in carbon fiber fabrication alone for Red Bull.

The famous Spa-Franchorchamps is 4.5 miles. The dreaded Eau Rouge corner needs to be taken FLAT, if you got the sack for it. Kimi Räikkönen has won here three times and starts P6 today. He had it won last year and then some nutty Spa-like stuff occurred. Insert cars spinning like tops here. Color guy David Hobbs takes us around the course onboard with Fisichella.

Starting lineup: Fisichella (!!!), Trulli, Nick Heidfeld, Rubens Barrichello, Bob Kubica, Kimi Räikkönen, Timo Glock, Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber, Nico Rosberg, Adrian Sutil, Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, Heikki Kovalainen, Sebastien Buemi, Jaime Alguersuari, Kazuki Nakajima, Romain Grosjean, Luca Badoer

Story lines: Matchett says teams are going to try and minimize the use of the option tire, which doesn't work well for many. Hobbs says we may have a first-time winner here. Bob says watch out for Spa suprises.

Gridded. Lights are coming on. Red, Red, Red, Red ... dark means GREEN GREEN GREEN.

Räikkönen goes to evasive maneuver Tango William Edward to swerve around the stalled Rubens Barrichello. Rubens gets going a second later. Now Räikkönen goes WAAAAAY wide in turn 1 and comes back in to inhale a BMW. We're into Les Combes (turns 7, 8, 9).

Cue the circus music! It's a festival of carbon fiber. Trulli, Grojean, Lewis, Button, Alguersuari are all off. We got crazy shit breaking out. A tiny safety car pulls up and 19 clowns jump out and start playing the accordion effect.

Trulli has damage. Several cars are junk on the spot. Some manage to get going again.

Matchett: SAFETY CAR!

Yellow yellow yellow. The rare full-course yellow in F1 brings out the Safety Car (pace car). Insert Matchett jumping up and down like a six-year-old going to the circus in the booth here.

Jenson Button is cooked. Replay. Hamilton gets speared from behind. Was just minding his own business. Onboard Jenson. Gets the same treatment as Lewis. nailed from behind and spins. Räikkönen hip-checked Trulli and that may have started the whole dreaded accordion effect.

Barrichello in for repairs. Ditches the option tires. Windsor says the whole thing was touched off by Räikkönen. Replay of the start and Räikkönen swerving around Barrichello and then going waaaaaay wide into the run off into hairpin-ish Turn 1 (La Source). Safety car drivers get major air.

41 to go. Barrichello rid of the option tires and packed with fuel. You cannot pass on restarts in F1 until the start-finish. (Note to the IRL: adopt this rule.)

40 to go. GREEN. Räikkönen is on Fisichella like a lion chasing dinner. KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System) at the ready. Up a hill. KERS! Räikkönen inhales Fisichella for the lead.

KERS is a system that captures energy from the rotating drive shaft when the car is coasting or breaking and stores it in batteries. It can then be used for about 6 seconds per lap to give the cars 80 more horsepower. (Or as Matchett insists on saying, "80 BRAKE horsepower," which I find confusing. Is that different than just plain old horsepower?) 

F1 encouraged the development of KERS to help the development of similar systems on passenger cars and to encourage overtaking. KERS is optional and only two teams use it (Ferrari and McLaren-Mercedes). The downside to it is that it adds about 80 pounds to your car, and that extra weight affects overall s peed. So many teams decided the benefit of the boost was not worth the cost of the weight. Matchett also is on record as thinking it should be banned. BUT, let's ask Kimi if he likes his KERS now since it basically gave him the lead.

The Clown Car first lap also created the restart which screwed Fisichella.

Windor says Fisichella won't race too hard against Ferrari since Fisichella wants to replace Luca as the fill-in driver for Massa.

Well isn't that special? What a man of character this Fisichella must be if Pete is correct. Although he could be talking out of his ass. We shall see.

Räikkönen gets the wings back in the delta and goes supersonic, posting fastest lap after fastest lap. But looky here ... Fisichella is staying with him.

Räikkönen, Fisichella, Kubica, Glock, Webber, Heidfeld, Vettel, Rosberg.

38 to go -- I admit dozing here a bit. Sutil inhales Nakajima. Viewing enhanced.

It occurs to me here why people like Spa. Prepare for blasphemy: It's ovalish. LONG straightaways, a few sweeping oval-like turns. Lots of overtaking spots. See layout. 

Replays from overhead of the lap 1 madness.

34 to go -- Pit window is open. Safety car may have pushed the window back a bit. Matchett is furiously working the numbers and giving us the detailed breakdown of the possibilities.

32 to go -- Kubica and Glock pit. Räikkönen is up by 1.8 seconds on Fisichella, not bad since Räikkönen is going purple (fastest time of the race) all over the place.

Glock has refueling issues. They gotta go to the backup fuel rig. Did it pretty quickly, though.

31 to go -- Räikkönen and Fisichella pit. Both are in and out with no issues. Props to the Force India team who is not used to having the pit pressure of P2 on them.

Webber comes out of the pit and almost hip checks Heidfeld into the wall on pit road, right outside his pit box. Holy replay of Spain when Webber was released almost into another car. Red Bull got a warning over that one, so booth guys think the stewards will be all over this close call.

Heidfeld overtakes Webber going up the hill. Hobbs-- (Webber) is doing a bad jof of blocking Heidfeld.

Now Barrichello inhales Webber through a corner series. Hobbs: "Jeepers creepers. Now that's large attachments there. Very large attachments."

29 -- Webber is now blocking Sutil. Hobbs wonders if the stewards will take note. Insert me spewing beer of the race here. When's the last time F1 penalized anyone for blocking? ANYONE. EVER? Never. Blocking is celebrated in F1. And fans love it! (Not.)

Stewards do penalize Red Bull for releasing Webber almost into a crash. Drive through penalty. Booth guys agree on the justness of the verdict and praise it's speedy delivery.

26 to go. Rosberg pits. Webber drives through. Webber continues throwing block parties for everyone. F1 has no issue with it, as long as everyone is invited.

Replay of Sutil overtaking Rosberg. Fisichella is STILL within 1 second of Räikkönen.

24 to go -- Räikkönen, Fisichella, Alonso, Kubica, Kovalainen, Buemi, Vettel, Heidfeld.

Trulli is now OUT. Lap 1 damage was too much, I guess. Machett speculates that may be it for Toyota.

22 to go -- Räikkönen is just .7 seconds ahead of Fisichella.

20 to go -- Alonso pits. We got left front issues. Changer dude can't get the left front on. Struggling with that wacky wheel fairing (like a hub cap). Finally get 'Nando out but it's a 34 second stop and something flies off his wheel on the way out.

18 to go -- Team is calling Alonso back into the pit to retire. After his wheel came off pre-Spain and they almost got banned for that one, Renault is taking no chances.

17 to go -- Rubens pits. Matchett throws the left front tire changer right under the bus and practically calls for his firing. Easy Steve. What about the replay we saw of the nasty first-lap left-front impact? Could that have screwed up the wheel and made it hard to change? Maybe? (Well, yeah, it did, according to news reports the day after the race.) Maybe apologize to the left front changer who did his best only to get tossed under the bus based on what we could see on TV, which wasn't a lot given the angle.

14 to go -- Räikkönen, Fisichella, Vettel, Heidfeld, Kubica, Rosberg, Glock, Webber.

Räikkönen and Fisichella both pit. Pressure on the pit crews. Both rock it and the two are out in a flash. Räikkönen is out first, but just barely.

Vettel pits. He gained P3 when Kubica pitted earlier. Can he keep it? Red Bull comes up big for Vettel and he's out .. ahead of Kubica. P3. Vettel stayed out for a few laps after Kubica pitted. Vettel got his wings back and went supersonic for a couple of laps to gap Kubica, then the pit crew rocked it and he gained the position. Striking.

8 to go -- Räikkönen will win barring air strike, but Fisichella is hounding him. If Räikkönen makes a mistake, he'll probably get inhaled.

Räikkönen, Fisichella, Vettel, Kubica, Heidfeld, Kovalainen, Barrichello, Rosberg, WEbber, Glock, Sutil, Buemi, Nakajima.

Vettel is closing on Fisichella.

5 to go. Hobbs CANNOT get over Fisichella's performance. Raving and exclaiming. It's well deserved raving and exclaiming, I agree.

3 to go. Barrichello's engine is starting to smoke (and I don't mean a cigarette). He's putting out quite a plume going around there. Looks like something you'd see coming out of a shelled out rusty 1978 Chevy Impala cruising through the 'hood. The engine might be about to be BLOWN up, SIR!

Part of me hopes it blows since there's nothing like a good, classic engine blow up, but part of me hopes Rubens, a good guy, hangs on. Rubens' radio: "Rubens. Engine. Be careful. Back off. You have 6 seconds (in front of Rosberg). Look after the engine."

Matchett somehow gets the idea that Fisichella's team would tell him about Rubens' engine problem. "(If I'm Fisichella), no question I'm going to think 'I'm using a Mercedes as well.'"

Dude. If I'm Fisichella's team, there's no way on earth I'm telling him about Rubens' engine smoking. And since Fisichella is well in front of Rubens, not sure how he knows about it.

Rubens radio -- telemetry looks good. Just an oil leak. Nurse it home.

Ferrari has run 787 races and won 4069.5 points. Force India: 30 races, 0 points.

1 to go. ...

Räikkönen wins. Fisichella P2(!!) Vettel P3. Cars parked. I just realized Räikkönen's car is #4. F1 tries their best to hide the numbers.  Video of Barrichella's car on fire in the pits. Not a huge rush to put it out. Little oil fire on the back engine cover. Nothing to get too crazy about.

Podium. Räikkönen almost smiles a couple of times. Italy's national anthem (for Ferrari) is about an hour long. The team sings it, though, so that's a nice touch.

SIX different winners in the last SIX races in F1. Viewing extremely enhanced. Here F1 is clearly schooling IndyCar which has had five winners ALL SEASON (15 races so far), and four of them from the same two teams. I guess tune in to F1 this year if you want to see a variety of winners and podium participants (and not just on the third step). Last time F1 had six different winners in six races was 1982, so enjoy it while it is here. I know I am.

Finishing order: Räikkönen, Fisichella, Vettel, Kubica, Heidfeld, Kovalainen, Barrichello, Rosberg, Webber, Glock, Sutil, Buemi, Nakajima, Boeder, Alonso, Trulli, Button, Grosjean, Hamilton, Alguersuari.

Points: Button 72, Barrichello 56, Vettel 53, Webber 51.6, Räikkönen 34. The booth guys made a great point earlier that Button keeps dodging bullets in that races he DNFs or doesn't score points in his main rivals also do poorly, minimizing the points damage.

Constructors: Brawn GP 128, Renault 105, Ferrari 56, McLaren-Mercedes 44.

That's it from SPA. Super-fast Monza (another ovular circuit) is next. Tune in Sept. 13 at 8 a.m. Eastern on SPEED.

Comments

[Leigh O'Gorman]

A quick note:
Force India announced improvements of 7/10th of a second at Valencia, but admitted that they wouldn't come into affect until an "open circuit" like Spa. Expect them to be fast at Monza too...

As an aside, have you ever seen the old "Monza oval"? Mental banking......

[pressdog]

I thought I noticed the outline of an old oval on the Monza circuit map. Makes sense re: Force India. Straight-line speed could make up for a lot at SPA, and also at Monza.

[Leigh O'Gorman]

A couple of nice clips in this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhyyFr-LS9k

[Filip Cleeren]

"There are approximately 125 breweries in the country, ranging from international giants to microbreweries; in Europe only Germany, France and the United Kingdom are home to more breweries. Belgian breweries produce about 800 standard beers. When special one-off beers are included, the total number of Belgian beers is approximately 8700. Belgians drink 93 litres of beer a year on average."

Brought to you by Wikipedia. Thought I'd throw in some local fait divers.

[Pat W]

The reason everyone likes Spa is because it is an old-fashioned *proper* race track. It has elevation changes, a variety of corners, and you feel like you've been somewhere when you watch a lap of it (rather than running around between some fences).

The reason people despair about the majority of the F1 schedule is that instead of soulless Herman Tilke creations in the back of beyond, we used to have more circuits like this.. although none as good as Spa!

btw there is a difference between 'defending' and 'blocking'. There is too much blocking, but a good defence is fine, you can't just roll over and let the guy through.

[Jon Knox]

I wonder if this wordsmith is the Dave Hobbs that I used to know from Barnet, who was a great writer and an F1holic!
Jon Knox

[Leigh O'Gorman]

Hey Pressdog,
I did a little digging and check this out for size. Was doing a little investigating on the Monza oval and got sent this by one of the chaps on the Autosport website.

According to the 1957 Monzanapolis Race Programme (and this is a rough translation);

"...the angle of the banking was between a minimum of 12% and a maximum of 80%.
The radius of the North Curve is given on the 1957 circuit map as 324.2 m and that of the South Curve at 318.32m..."

At its highest point, the banking reached approximately 39°. How completely insane is that!?
:o

[pressdog]

That's even more Freak Show Like banking than Texas Motor Speedway and it's mighty 24-ish degree banking.

[Leigh O'Gorman]

yeah,
there some really clips of it on You Tube that just show how insanely dangerous it was

:o

[Mike Krapfl]

Mr. Pdog: As always, a fine recap. And just FYI (courtesy of our friends at Wikipedia): Brake horsepower (abbreviated bhp) is the measure of an engine's horsepower without the loss in power caused by the gearbox, generator, differential, water pump, and other auxiliary components such as alternator, power steering pump, muffled exhaust system, etc.

[Pat W]

Um.. I /may/ have driven on the old banking. Pics don't do it justice - on some sections it is literally too steep to climb from bottom to top..

http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/lh/photo/PKSqz2NhEda-ff5_hR9bqA?feat=directlink