Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 225. (Read 141662 times)

Verstappen went up very fast and took the lead from the 12th lap already. When Sainz went to pit stop, the track was left to the RBR. Leclerc also lost his gained positions by going to early pit stop. Ferrari is behind again. They still have a chance to do podium though, if they pass Russell or RBR make a mistake.
Bottas was out of the race because of Latifi. Hamilton was out, was it all of his fault? Alonso's words were pretty harsh and factually wrong though.

^  No one picked him up

The GOAT did the best thing he does and caused Bottas to be out of the race. 

The touch between Hamilton and Alonso just cost Hamilton the race. Alonso blamed him for pushing his luck too much by trying to overtake him from outside. It must be a big disappointment for Hamilton after having a poor qualifying session also.

Verstappen is really unstoppable now. He is climbing the positions like nothing and it looks like he is going to win the race under normal conditions. It is too difficult for Sainz to keep him behind while Verstappen is much faster than even him. It is only the 10th lap and Verstappen is nearly in the 2nd position already.

GOATIFI

If you know, you know...

We still see new grid penalties. This time Tsunoda is going to start from the pit lane as there has been a change in his power unit under Parc Ferme conditions.

This helped the other drivers who got grid penalties gain one position on the grid. This is good for Verstappen as he is already way faster than all of the drivers now. If he gets lucky in the race also then he might even fight for the win. He made it to the win in the Hungarian GP even though he started in 10th place.

But I still believe in Sainz to win this race. Ferrari are scaring me after making another mistake in Q3 about Leclerc's tyres. But hopefully the race won't be like that.

Verstappen certainly has the speed to finish in the top 5 today, and with a bit of luck even on the podium. Am also very surprised that Ferrari does not come to the speed of Red Bull, and not even close 🤔🤔.

This looks very bad for the world championship at Ferrari.

Red Bull have much better pace than Ferrari and it means a lot in such track like Spa. It's good news for Max who will start race from back of grid, overtaking won't be a problem. I only don't understand why Max on Q3 didn't went to help Perez and give him slipstream.

That moment with Leclerc tyres pretty much summarizes Ferrari season. Maybe it's not worst mistake that they had, with correct set of tyres there is no guarantee that his result would be much better, but it shows that they haven't learnt anything and such things is going to continue

The summer break changed NOTHING for Ferrari, I mean they put on wrong tires on either Charles or Sainz I forgot which one but that is basically the same old idiotic pit team from Ferrari, that is just not acceptable at all.

At this point I am expecting Ferrari to one day have wet tires on left rear, hard on right rear, medium on left front and softs on right front, does it sound like a joke? It does, but would anyone be really shocked that Ferrari ever did something like that? I wouldn't be really. This is why I guess that Red Bull would have a very easy chance for championship this year, Max and RB will be the winners until some serious competition comes along.

Pole position for Sainz but RBR is so much faster.

During the interview on Italian television, Lecler said something like

"We don't know how RBR is so fast here this weekend we didn't expect to be 7-8 tens behind them"



But tomorrow will be hotter, and everything can change with the change of the temeperature.

Sainz can start from Pole position tomorrow. No guarantee of victory. Verstappen has had a new engine installed so it will probably be allowed to start somewhere at the back. But if there is anyone who can still win from any place, it is Verstappen. Ferrari could use another success. The battle for the world championship already seems decided because Leclerc just doesn't manage to win and Verstappen falls in points every time and also wins many races comfortably. If Ferrari wants to achieve anything, they will have to win tomorrow and hope that Red Bull does not fall into the points. The battle for the constructors' championship is still there.

We have the qualifying results now.

Sainz did a really good job today. He managed to take the pole position by finishing ahead of Perez. They both wasted their last chances by worse laps. Perez had a chance to overtake Sainz but couldn't make use of it. Verstappen was so comfortable also. Maybe he was going to start from the back to the race anyway but this wasn't an obstacle for him to have the best lap of the session. There was a huge difference between him and Sainz like 0.6 second. It might be a signal for the race tomorrow however it seems very difficult for him to finish the race as the winner by starting at the 15th position.

I expect Sainz to win the race also. He has the biggest opportunity in his hand after winning the British GP.

^  Yup and the books also really think that they're on another level, they lined Verstappen the favorite to win at 2.75 with Sainz behind him at 3.05 then Perez at 4.00.    It should be a very interesting race with lots of memes if Verstappen wins from behind...

Anyway what do you guys think of Leclerc at 12.00?  Seems like a nice value bet and worth a shot for a small bet.  Leclerc showed he has some pace at Q2 too.

RBR seems to be on another level I don't think Ferrari hid itself this morning.

For Ferrari, it seems harder to heat the tires.

^  The car is ok as he didn't the barriers and he managed to get the car out of the gravel so that's good news.

And it looks like the Red Bulls have had a better upgrade than the Ferraris have.  But we'll see for sure in quali.  By the time they get to Q2, that's when we finally have an idea how fast the Ferraris are in this track.  I'm still hopeful they're quick because it makes for a good race.  Spa is one of the best tracks in F1 imho.  

Anyway here are the results for FP3...

2022 F1 Belgian GP FP3 Results

1      Sergio Perez   MEX   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m45.047s
2   Max Verstappen   NED   Oracle Red Bull Racing   1m45.184s
3   Carlos Sainz   ESP   Scuderia Ferrari   1m45.824s
4   Lando Norris   GBR   McLaren F1 Team   1m45.965s
5   Fernando Alonso   ESP   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m46.061s
6   George Russell   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m46.071s
7   Charles Leclerc   MON   Scuderia Ferrari   1m46.120s
8   Sebastian Vettel   GER   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m46.166s
9   Esteban Ocon   FRA   BWT Alpine F1 Team   1m46.601s
10   Pierre Gasly   FRA   Scuderia AlphaTauri   1m46.604s
11   Daniel Ricciardo   AUS   McLaren F1 Team   1m46.646s
12   Lewis Hamilton   GBR   Mercedes AMG Petronas Formula One Team   1m46.789s
13   Nicholas Latifi   CAN   Williams Racing   1m46.811s
14   Alexander Albon   THA   Williams Racing   1m46.836s
15   Valtteri Bottas   FIN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   1m46.881s
16   Lance Stroll   CAN   Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant Formula One Team   1m46.975s
17   Kevin Magnussen   DEN   Haas F1 Team   1m46.982s
18   Yuki Tsunoda   JPN   Scuderia AlphaTauri    1m47.035s
19   Guanyu Zhou   CHN   Alfa Romeo F1 Team Orlen   1m47.089s
20   Mick Schumacher   GER   Haas F1 Team   1m52.494s

This is the best and worst races for the drivers during the season so far. DNFs aren't included by the way.

When we look at this statistics we can clearly see that Russell is really the "Mr Consistency".    Mercedes must be very satisfied with his performance even though they started the season with a very weak car. Even Hamilton couldn't do better than him at first. It is for sure that Russell is going to be Mercedes' main driver after Hamilton retires. Ricciardo is one of the most unsuccessful drivers of this season. We aren't going to see him at McLaren next season as it seems. While I was waiting for him to sign for Alpine some news related to Haas came out indeed. But with whom will he be replaced at Haas?

---

There was a red flag out in FP3 after Leclerc had an accident by losing control. I hope there is no problem with the car right before qualifying.

As I read there are some penalties this weekend on the grid, Leclerc apparently starts from the last place, which is another setback for the world championship fight.

At the Sauber team now rises Alfa Romeo early after the end of this season on the announcement of Audi.will also be interesting, Audi finances next year already Sauber, and what about the Ferrari powertrain?

Everyone is getting a new team, but Mick seems to be getting a bit shorter end of the stick. Even ricciardio will find a team to play (probably Haas) but Mick doesn't seem to have a clear direction where he will go and because of that it is going to be a bit of a trouble for him. Just get him to any team at all because he has some sort of talent with the type of name which will give him to be something big in the end if he races for a better team and that is going to be getting us a great driver.

I always said that he has "potential" and now he is going to end up with not being even in the league if no big club offers him something. I am not saying get him to Ferrari right away, but alpine, or alfa romeo, or whatever should get him and not let him be out of f1 this early.

Yup.

Light rain in the latest 30 minutes and the track went slippery so nobody could a good time.

More penalties will be official tomorrow, will be an interesting race.

Perez is really an ideal 2nd driver for Red Bull. He also took points here and there for Red Bull last season, which allowed Max to become world champion. Max is of course better and only talented, but I don't think Perez has a problem with being 2nd driver. He normally has to let Max go first, but he can also just win circuits. Verstappen is again the favorite, even if he started from 10th place he would still pass them all. Truly a phenomenon. Would he be better than Schumacher in his good time?

To tell the truth Perez is still doing a really good job in general. Because he is right behind Leclerc by only five points in the driver standings. He can even leave Leclerc behind this Sunday as Leclerc is going to start from the back. Perez is doing his best to help Red Bull stay at top in the championship race. He sometimes struggles to be consistent in races but I appreciate his effort until now. It is early to tell if Verstappen-Perez can be like Hamilton-Bottas at the end of this season. But Ferrari's mistakes are also paving the way for Perez to do just that.

As for my prediction about the winner of this Grand Prix, I think that it might be a chance for Sainz. If he fails then one of Perez and Hamilton can do this.