After a four-week break from racing, the F1 paddock could forgive the hope of a typical, no-nonsense race that will get them back on track ahead of the second half of the sport’s most populous calendar of all time.
Instead, the infamous microclimate around the Spa-Francorchamps circuit has conspired against the ten teams and 20 drivers to give them one of the most challenging Sundays they are likely to experience in 2021.
While there is already plenty of intrigue ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, the over 80% chance of rain on the track for the local 3pm start time could prove to be a big wildcard leading to a chaotic afternoon for the field.
At the sharp end of the grid, Max Verstappen gave himself the best possible chance to turn his World Cup luck with the pole position. After scoring just five points in the last two rounds and being faster than rival Lewis Hamilton on the first two days of this weekend, Verstappen knows he has the strength and the opportunity to take the championship lead in his first home race this weekend. To win Grand-Prix one more time.
The driver standing next to him, however, is likely to be the strangest element of the race – especially when it actually rains as expected.
Will Russell be a nuisance to Mercedes? George Russell is a Williams driver from a notable second on the grid, but Mercedes will be very happy to have him within reach of Verstappen at the start of the race. After his infamous accident with Valtteri Bottas at Imola in April and a rather awkward conversation with Toto Wolff, Russell said he realized that even though he didn’t share the same car as the Mercedes factory drivers, he needed to be more careful with them on the track.
“Lewis and Valtteri are kind of team-mates for me,” Russell said after his crash in Imola. “I’m in this position because of Mercedes.”
Russell’s desire to get a good result for his current team is undeniable and he could attack Verstappen at the start if the gap is to be closed, but with Hamilton and Mercedes’ championship lead vulnerable to Verstappen and Red Bull, is this is also likely that Russell does not want to stop Hamilton too much, should he leave La Source before the current leaders.
The other side of the coin for Mercedes is that their second driver, Bottas, is starting from a low 13th place on the grid – a result of his intermediate tires taking too much temperature on his last Q3 run, which resulted in a penalty of five Places for his botched braking in Budapest.
Keeping rain tires in the window will be vital. Despite the start deep in the field, Bottas is still aiming for a top 3 position thanks to a low downforce solution for the weekend that should allow him to get the cars in front of him during the race.
“We should give most cars an advantage on the straights,” says Bottas. “I hope that tomorrow it will be dry sometime and that overtaking will help.”
Bottas could very well start near another driver out of position – Lando Norris. Depending on the repairs required to Norris’ McLaren overnight after his ugly end of qualifying in the Raidillon tire wall, Norris could well drop five places on the starting grid and move to 14th place, just ahead of Bottas. That’s when all he needs is a gearbox change and no more drastic repairs on his McLaren.
With Norris arguably as good at getting the most out of his car as anyone else on the grid this season, we can expect the orange McLaren to navigate its way up the field in all conditions. And should Norris be forced to start from the pit lane, then he at least has the advantage of optimally adapting the wing heights to the conditions that Spa brings with it for the start of the race.
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But if at some point the race calls for the use of rain tires, the most important factor for all drivers will be keeping the spirited Pirelli wet and intermediate tires within the notoriously narrow window of use. Bottas and Hamilton demonstrated the trouble caused by not getting enough energy into the tires in Q3, while Fernando Alonso attributed his Q2 exit to overheating his Inters after rushing to hit the timeline to to begin his final lap before the checkered flag.
With track conditions around different bends on the Spa track constantly changing, there is a clear risk that safety cars, virtual safety cars and even red flag stops and restarts may throw all strategies out of the window and drivers and teams just have to do it react.
Red Bull has secured a potential tire advantage “We know what to do when there is a dry race,” says Alpine managing director Marcin Budkowski. “It’s a very simple, straightforward strategy when it’s a dry race.”
But on Saturday evening, the official FIA weather forecast stated that the chance of rain for the race was over 80%.
“If it’s a wet and dry race, everything’s in the air,” Budkowski continued. “If it’s wet, you could do a whole race on an Inter, but if it dries, they go away very quickly. So it could be a very interesting race tomorrow if the conditions are wet-drying-wet-drying. “
Which team can have an advantage in mixed conditions? Red Bull.
“Both drivers managed to keep a set of Inters”, revealed Christian Horner on Sky after qualifying in another downpour. “I think we’re the only team in the top 10 that has that. So if it is like this tomorrow – more ‘summer’ conditions – then at least we have something up our sleeves. “
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Quotes: Dieter Rencken
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Qualification times complete
Over to you
Will Verstappen recapture the championship lead from Hamilton? Could we see another shock winner? And what can Bottas and Norris save from their compromised starting positions?
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Belgian Grand Prix 2021
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