Sky Sports F1's Martin Brundle delivers the final word on the final race before the mid-season break, assessing starring drives from both Mercedes drivers, the post-race ruling that eventually cost them an unexpected one-two, and how things have changed for Max Verstappen and Red Bull
Tuesday 30 July 2024 14:42, UK
The Belgian GP at Spa generated the usual high-speed drama and surprises, mixed in with the inevitable changeable weather.
It was an enthralling race, but which ended up being more a tease than a thriller. And the final act was gut wrenching for some.
The track has been resurfaced again in many places, and when I had a few laps in a 1989 Arrows A11 on Friday for a Sky F1 track guide, it struck me just how incredibly pristine and manicured tracks are now compared to the past.
It suits my eye for presentation, as it does modern F1, but much of the character can be lost. That's no different to the beautifully manicured football pitches we see today for example, rather than muddy patches in front of goal, but perhaps generates less drama.
That new surface added yet more speed, and during dry running on Friday it was tormenting the tyre compounds and surfaces, such were the energy levels. A washout on Saturday would significantly cloud the issue in terms of no representative track running to finesse race set-ups or understand the challenges.
In more recent times, with so much data, experience, and endless simulation work available, I've rarely known those in the know, and therefore the media too, being so off the pace in how the race might play out.
The Friday running, and even a dry F2 race on Sunday morning, suggested that tyre degradation would be very significant during the Grand Prix.
There was much talk of McLaren being the pacesetters and 'guesstimation' as to how long it would take Max Verstappen from a new power unit-penalised 11th on the grid to emerge near the front. It was perceived that best of the rest would be a close call between Ferrari, Mercedes, and Sergio Perez in the front-row-starting Red Bull.
Verstappen was immense in a lightly wet qualifying, comfortably taking pole position with either of his two new Intermediate tyre runs, having saved an extra set over everyone else because he cleared the Q1 and Q2 bars so easily. His Friday dry-tyre long runs had looked very impressive too.
In the end Charles Leclerc delivered a very clean lap in qualifying to seize a surprise pole position, after Verstappen's penalty was applied, with his innate speed.
With Perez second, Lewis Hamilton continued his revived form with an impressive third. McLaren appeared to have trimmed their downforce in anticipation of a dry race and lined up fourth and fifth.
Lando Norris appeared a little unhappy about something all weekend despite solid performances, and I wondered if the events of Budapest the weekend before were still playing on his mind.
Pole position in Spa usually means you have a big target on your rear wing as you punch a hole in the air on the long climb to the turn five chicane Les Combes.
As an amusing aside, I remember sitting in early debriefs with my team-mate Mika Hakkinen at McLaren in 1994 and he kept referring to a chicken when talking about the car handling. Eventually we had to ask him what he meant about this chicken, but of course in his Finnish English he was saying chicane. And I've witnessed very few who could navigate a 'chicken' faster than he did.
On this occasion, with Norris having dipped a left-rear tyre in the gravel on the exit of the first corner, and subsequently Perez and Hamilton squabbling over second place, Leclerc kept the lead.
Hang on a minute, Hamilton is catching Leclerc. No wait, on lap three Hamilton takes the lead - that wasn't in the script!
As it settled down, the Mercedes' of Hamilton and George Russell looked to have decent race pace after looking quite a handful on Friday.
It settled down like that as the drivers had to do early management of tyres on full tanks of fuel.
Carlos Sainz in the second Ferrari didn't have a great qualifying and had nothing to lose by starting on the hard compound tyre, and he would be the last driver in the field to make an initial pit stop, at that point from the lead despite an adventure through the Stavelot gravel trap, on lap 20. Interesting.
Russell had pitted on lap 10 to get rid of his medium compound tyres and fit a new set of hard tyres, and that would be the last time he would see the pitlane in this 44-lap race, on the longest circuit in F1, until post-race to seize the winner's trophy and champagne.
Verstappen was necessarily super cautious in the first corner and picked off his early and more easy victims in Alex Albon, Esteban Ocon, and Fernando Alonso who were all in a race for best of the rest rather than any squabble with the world championship leader.
But when Verstappen arrived on the back of Norris and the leading bunch in a train seeking shelter in the open rear wing DRS zone of the driver in front, he stalled out for progress.
Gone are the days when Red Bull was so dominant they could win any which way from almost anywhere on the grid.
Russell's lap-10 stop dictated that Hamilton, Oscar Piastri and Perez all pitted on lap 11, forcing a reaction from Ferrari with Leclerc on lap 12. McLaren left Norris out until lap 15 to give him fresher tyres for later in the race, but it was becoming evident that tyres were lasting much better than forecast.
The second stops for the front runners varied from laps 21 (Perez) to 30 (Piastri), such was the variety of strategy interpretations.
Russell's pace was solid and he was clearly thinking about one-stopping from his radio calls. He would later say that he sensed better grip every lap, and he didn't have much to lose as stopping or not, assuming he could get to the end, suggested P5 for him.
But his pace remained strong albeit with his team-mate Hamilton catching him at three quarters of a second per lap, now ahead of Piastri's McLaren who was catching them both.
When Hamilton arrived on Russell's gearbox it seemed inevitable that with 16-lap fresher tyres he would sail past. But Russell was finding enough traction where it mattered, and enough battery power to defend where it also mattered, to hold off Hamilton who was sliding around in his turbulent wake.
Why I earlier described the race as a tease is because there were two groups of three drivers in Russell, Hamilton, and Piastri, and seven seconds behind them Leclerc, Verstappen, and Norris, all fighting tooth and nail, but nothing actually changed in the closing laps.
The DRS zone climbing the hill on the Kemmel Straight had been shortened by 75 metres for this year, and with a gentle tail wind meaning the leader of the two trios wasn't punching a hole into a headwind too, ensured that the overtaking zone wasn't as powerful this year.
And there it was, Russell's finest F1 victory to date, brilliantly delivered, although Hamilton was less impressed as he felt that at each of his two pit stops he handed back tyres with plenty of grip.
Mercedes had totally unexpectedly pulled a one-two out of the bag for their third victory in four races. They kept the victory with Hamilton, but the one-two fell away when Russell's car was found to be 1.5kg underweight against a specified minimum of 798kg with no fuel onboard.
Teams must calculate an end-of-race weight due to the consumables such as fluids, brake discs and pads, and underfloor skid blocks and legality 'plank'. If anything has obviously fallen off the car due to contact, for example, that can be replaced with an identical part.
In Spa, due to the long lap, there is no slow-down lap and the cars are directed into the pit lane exit to trundle down it the wrong way towards the podium and parc feme.
I always think that's a shame for the fans and should be revisited, but it's longstanding and will be factored in by the teams as this means there is no chance to pick up discard rubber 'marbles' offline and add significant weight to each tyre.
Charlie Whiting once told me that strictly speaking the scrutineers could ask for excessive 'pick up' to be scraped off for weighing purposes, but I'm not aware that's ever happened.
Russell completed 75 per cent of the Grand Prix on one set of tyres in a relentless race on a grippy circuit, with no respite of a safety car, either physical or virtual.
The legality 'plank' under the cars devised to avoid them running too low, and every team having to put on a super expensive new floor every day as we used to do in the '80s, would also be worn away to an extent as we could clearly see them smoking away in high-speed Eau Rouge and Blanchimont on full fuel at the start of the race.
The impressive five-page scrutineering document released by the FIA post-race, as per usual, is silent on measuring plank wear other than Leclerc's Ferrari being randomly selected for extra physical checks which I would assume includes the plank.
All 19 finishers were checked for weight and numerous other aspects.
Weighing scales were validated, and the Mercedes team could only accept that a mistake had been made, and car number 63 was duly disqualified.
There can be no tolerance on this. By saying, for example, 'it's only half a kilo light, it didn't make any difference', leaves the door open for 'it's only a kilo light, and that's only half a kilo more than Team X last week and that was deemed irrelevant'.
Rules most definitely are rules here.
I calculate 1.5kg to be worth around 2.5 seconds over the course of the race, and the top three were covered by 1.173 seconds, but that's oversimplifying it to say the least as there are a multitude of other factors at play.
It's totally conceivable that Russell going onto a surprise one-stop strategy, with good grip and balance using all four tyres hard, that they could easily be a combined 1.5kg lighter. Ironically if it was raining the car would have been measured on a selected set of dry tyres, but it's not an option to replace dry tyres for another set.
And so, Lewis won his 105th F1 race and he drove superbly to earn that, even if the team and his team-mate were taking serious pain.
At Red Bull they have some tough decisions to take in the summer break, given that Perez slipped back to a distant eighth on the road from the front row, and McLaren are now only 42 points behind them in the Constructors' Championship, and closing fast.
I'm very much looking forward to the 10 remaining races this season.
Formula 1 returns after the summer break with the Dutch Grand Prix at Zandvoort on August 23-25, live on Sky Sports F1. Stream every F1 race and more with a NOW Sports Month Membership - No contract, cancel anytime
