F1 Belgian Grand Prix
Vettel dominated a rather uneventful Belgian Grand Prix. This was the 11th round of the season and the 69th running of the Belgian GP. With this win Vettel extended his lead in the drivers championship over Alonso to 46 points and Red Bull are 77 points clear of Mercedes.
Unlike last year, this year all cars made it through turn 1 with pole sitter Hamilton leading Vettel off the line. However Vettel got a better run through Eau Rouge and was able to complete the pass on the Kemmel Straight leading into Les Combes. From this point on there was no looking back for Vettel. With the Mercedes of Hamilton not able to to keep pace with the Red Bull and driving in clean air, Vettel was able to manage his tyres comfortably and cruised to victory.
Further down the grid, Alonso starting from 9th made a superb start and gained 4 places. He then passed both Button and Rosberg and was running 2nd before he pitted on lap 13. By staying out two laps longer than Hamilton, he was right behind the Mercedes when it came out of the pits and was able to pass him for second place.
Both Rosberg and Webber spent much of the afternoon lapping in fourth and fifth place respectively, battling each other without troubling the podium.
Lotus tried a one stop strategy with Grosjean but the performance was not there and he ended up one place lower than what he started in 8th. While in the other car, Raikkonen didn’t have a good start and lost two positions off the line. He then eventually recovered back to 8th but a brake failure while battling with Massa ended his race. This brought an end to his amazing run of 28 race finishes in the points.
There were minor skirmishes up and down the field but the big one came on lap 27 with Sutil, di Resta, Gutierrez and Maldanado fighting for 11th place. The Williams fighting with the Sauber, didn’t see the Force India of di Resta on the outside as he decided to go into the pits. That ended the race for Force India driver and he was left to rue what might have been. Sutil went on to finish in 9th salvaging 2 points for the team. The final point was picked up by Ricciardo who is rumored to be Webber’s replacement next year.
The F1 circus now heads to legendary Autodromo Nazionale Monza in Italy for round 12 of the Formula1 World Championship.
