Monday 29 August 2016 10:35, UK
The Belgian GP couldn't be better set, how Max Verstappen's contrary strategy could yet work, and Jenson Button's quality dilemma...
The stage is perfectly set for a cracker
Two world champions on the back row, the two title contenders split by 20 places, the front-row starters set to be out on different tyres, a packed house, an iconic circuit, glorious weather.
Sunday's Belgian GP race couldn't be better set.
A cracker? Sunday's race could be a classic.
One of the Red Bull drivers has got it wrong
By deliberate design and a premeditated decision, the two Red Bull drivers have selected divergent tyre strategies for Sunday's race with Daniel Ricciardo choosing to start on the slower but more durable softs and Verstappen opting to begin on the supersofts - which are rapid but also rapidly-degrading. Someone's got it right and someone must have got it wrong.
The laws of probability suggest it is Verstappen who has erred given his strategy flies in the face of the best tactical thinking of Mercedes and Ferrari as well as the other half of the Red Bull garage. It is far more likely, surely, that Verstappen has got it wrong rather than Sebastian Vettel, Ricciardo, Kimi Raikkonen and Nico Rosberg.
But one potential ace up Verstappen's sleeve by starting out on the grippier and quicker supersofts is he can drive his own strategic thinking. Take the lead into the first corner, drive off into the distance for a couple of laps, pit, return to the track in fresh air and hope everyone else loses time squabbling over track position? It could work.
One thing is for certain: there will be plenty of fans packed around the Spa circuit hoping he does just that.
Button's still got it - but does F1 still have it for him?
"I'm probably driving the best I have in my career."
So said Jenson Button on Friday. It was quite the statement given the McLaren veteran won the world title in 2009 and has been in F1 since 2000. But less than a day later the Englishman was as good as his boast as he took ninth in qualifying with what he subsequently hailed as "one of the best laps I've ever done". Again, that's some accolade when you stop to consider his (literal) track record.
There's still plenty of life - and pace - in the old dog just yet. The debate about Button's future has been framed around the likelihood that McLaren, mindful of the combined age of their current driver line-up, will look to the future and introduce Stoffel Vandoorne at his expense for 2017. But perhaps the real question to be asked is whether Button can be persuaded to stay on in F1 at McLaren or anywhere else. He's still good enough for F1 but is F1 still good enough for JB?
Button told reporters on Friday that he had "multiple" options to stay on in F1 for next season. But it's also worth recalling how adamant Jenson was in March that last year's uncertainty about his future had been misrepresented. "I needed to be shown by the team and by Ron [Dennis] that it was worth continuing - it was that way round," Button assured Sky F1's Damon Hill upon his arrival in Melbourne.
Will he back again in eight months' time? Who knows, but it's not the quantity of offers which is likely to matter to Button but the quality.
To the Manor motivated
It's an awkward motivational tool, but is there a better way of firing-up an F1 driver in 2016 than by giving him a new team-mate?
Just as Ricciardo appeared to go up a level after the arrival of Verstappen at Red Bull and Carlos Sainz has just got better and better since Daniil Kvyat joined Toro Rosso, Pascal Wehrlein has - an aberration in Practice One aside - looked a driver inspired this weekend at Manor following the appointment of Esteban Ocon.
Disconcertingly, Wehrlein rarely delivered anything particularly stand-out against Rio Haryanto, whose lowly status as a pay driver and modest yarstick was emphatically underlined by his ruthless dismissal when those funds dried up. Judging by Saturday, however, when Wehrlein reached Q2 for only the third time in his nascent F1 career, all he needed to get the competitive juices flowing was the arrival of a fellow Mercedes protégé - and, by all accounts, a bloke he doesn't like much.
But while Pascal deserves a moment's applause for a job well done, Esteban will hardly consider himself to have suffered a defeat. Half a second is a lot of lap time but factor in Spa being the longest circuit on the calendar along with Ocon's debutant status and it's just about a score-draw.
How not to make friends and influence peers
Esteban Gutierrez isn't likely to win many awards on his F1 comeback but he's currently well on his way to earning the unwanted tag of being the most unpopular on-track drivers in the sport.
A month ago, he earned a one-fingered salute from Lewis Hamilton during the Hungarian GP after holding up the race leader. A week later, Ricciardo sarcastically reported "I love this guy" over team radio after his advances in Germany were held up by the Haas driver. And this Saturday Gutierrez managed to earn the ire of both the stewards and the normally-mild-mannered Wehrlein when he impeded the Manor driver during, of all things, Practice Three.
The infringement was met with a five-place grid penalty and three more penalty points - a chart which Gutierrez now leads for the season. Given that two years and over 30 races have now passed since Gutierrez last troubled the race scorers, some might snipe that at least he's scoring points somewhere.
