2013 Belgian Grand Prix
The Grand Prix of Belgium 2013 ( officially 2013 Formula 1 Shell Belgian Grand Prix ) was held on August 25 at the Circuit de Spa -Francorchamps in Spa place and was the eleventh round of the Formula 1 season 2013.
- 3.1 qualifying
- 3.2 race
- 4.1 Drivers' Championship
- 4.2 Constructors' Championship
Reports
Background
After the Hungarian Grand Prix, Sebastian Vettel led the drivers' championship with 38 points ahead of Kimi Räikkönen and 39 points ahead of Fernando Alonso. Red Bull -Renault resulted in the constructors' championship with 69 points ahead of Mercedes and 83 points ahead of Ferrari.
At the Grand Prix of Belgium presented the Pirelli P Zero tire compounds drivers the hardware (orange) and P Zero medium ( white ) and for wet Cinturato Intermediates (green) and Cinturato Full Wets (blue ) are available.
With Raikkonen (four times ), Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton, Vettel and Jenson Button ( once each ) were five former winners of this Grand Prix.
As race officials acted Yves BACQUELAINE ( BEL), Lars Österlind (SWE ), Farhan Vohra (IND ) and Derek Warwick ( GBR).
Training
The first free practice took place under rainy conditions. After the driver had begun to intermediates in the training center, a change to dry tires was possible. Alonso was the fastest driver in front of Paul di Resta and Adrian Sutil. Heikki Kovalainen took over in this training the Caterham of Charles Pic. In the second free practice Vettel achieved under dry conditions, the best time ahead of Mark Webber and Romain Grosjean. Vettel suffered a puncture in this training. Giedo van der Garde had an accident in the 15 curve.
In the third free practice session, which took place in good weather, Vettel held the lead. Alonso finished second ahead of Webber.
Qualifying
Before the start of the session it had been raining, so the pilots began on intermediate tires. During the first portion of the rain stopped and the track dried somewhat. However, most pilots stayed on intermediates. Alonso scored on this mixture, the fastest time. The Marussia pilots and van der Garde sat in the closing stages on slicks and thus all managed to qualify for the next Qualifyingteil. Fastest on slicks was van der Garde, who was third overall. The Williams and Toro Rosso pilots and Pic and Esteban Gutierrez dropped out. In the second section, the weather conditions continued to improve, so that all pilots used slicks. Raikkonen was the fastest. The Marussia pilots and van der Garde, Sergio Pérez, Adrian Sutil and Nico Hulkenberg stepped down from. For the Marussia drivers Max Chilton and Jules Bianchi and van der Garde for it was the best up to this point qualifying placement in Formula 1
In the final phase of qualifying went down to di Resta all the drivers with slicks on the track. However, since it started to rain at the start, all the drivers changed after Intermediates. Di Resta, who started on intermediates, remained on the track and posted a fastest lap, which was initially accessible for no other due to increasing rain. However, shortly before the end of qualifying, the rain stopped, so the track was faster. Except for Hamilton, Vettel and Webber, however, all drivers were already been flagged. Hamilton was the fastest of the three pilots and achieved the pole position ahead of Vettel and Webber.
Race
When starting on a dry track, Hamilton claimed the lead from Vettel. While Webber started badly and lost some positions, Alonso made at the start of some good positions. On the Kemmel straight, there was an overtaking maneuver at the top. Vettel went out of the slipstream at Hamilton, whose passage at the end of the Eau Rouge was not optimal, over and sat down in the following laps.
In the fourth round Alonso went past Button. One lap later, Button lost another position to Webber. Alonso was on a fourth place and closed on the front of him Nico Rosberg on. Then in the sixth round, there was a change of position on the third position. In midfield, there were also jostling for position. While Pérez defended its position against Grosjean, overtook Raikkonen, who let out a lot of brake dust during braking, Hülkenberg. Pérez had Grosjean left the duel too little space, so he was given a drive-through penalty by the stewards. In the meantime, Pic had parked his vehicle. An oil leak forced him to give to the box.
In the tenth round of the phase of the first pit stops began. The Mercedes driver remained on the softer tire compound. Hamilton was just behind Grosjean, who had not yet stopped. Alonso remained three laps longer than Hamilton on the track. He also fell behind Grosjean and reconditioned in the first two laps after his pit stop first Grosjean and then Hamilton, who had come to the La Source a little too far to the outside. Hamilton attempted a counter-attack on the Kemmel straight, but was unsuccessful. Vettel remained of the leadership group for the longest time on the track. He briefly fell behind Button, who had not been on the box back, but overtook him still in the first round after his stop, so Vettel the lead in the standings never gave. Button went shortly thereafter to the box. He initially planned a one- stop strategy, but switched nine laps to go on a two-stop strategy because his tires faded too much.
In this section of the race there were some overtaking in midfield. Raikkonen went first to di Resta and one lap later to Pérez past. In the subsequent round Pérez lost more positions when he was overtaken by two Force India drivers. Di Resta before Eau Rouge, Sutil behind it. One lap after, there was in Eau Rouge contact between Sutil and Gutiérrez, in which both retained control of their vehicle. Button passed Massa and Grosjean in the meantime. In the 23rd round Grosjean was the last driver who has completed his first pit stop. Grosjean was on a one -stop strategy.
Shortly after the phase of the second pit stops had begun Raikkonen under braking in a duel with Massa in front of the bus stop. Räikkönen went on to the box and gave the race with a brake defect. Lotus confirmed after the race that a tearoff, which had been caught in the cooling channel, was the cause of the brake failure. That part was indeed removed at the first pit stop, but the disc had been damaged beyond repair already at this time. It was Räikkönen's first loss after his comeback in 2012. Moreover, he remained after 27 top- 10 finishes in a row without points. Shortly after Raikkonen's failure, it was at a four-way battle between Gutiérrez, Pastor Maldonado, di Resta and Sutil collision between di Resta and Maldonado at the beginning of the start -finish straight. Di Resta retired from the collision. Hamilton also went to the second pit stop phase as the first of the leading trio into the pits. The first three positions remained unchanged.
While Vettel confidently led the race, there were three penalties in the midfield. Chilton had ignored blue flags and was penalized with a drive-through penalty. With the same penalty Gutiérrez was punished, who had shortened the course and obtained an advantage. Maldonado was given a 5-second stop-and -go penalty for the collision with di Resta. In the top 10 there were a few position changes. Sutil and Daniel Ricciardo went past Pérez, who fell out with it out of the top -10. Massa, whose KERS in the race did not work correctly, overtook Grosjean and occupied the seventh position. It remained until the end dry.
Vettel eventually scored his fifth win of the season with about 17 seconds ahead of Alonso and 27 seconds ahead of Hamilton. Vettel profited from the fact that it was not started to rain, because his vehicle was adapted to dry conditions. Vettel won for the 31st time a Formula 1 race and moved so directly in the time list with Nigel Mansell. The two occupied after the race together the fifth position. Rosberg, Webber, Button, Massa, Grosjean, Sutil and Ricciardo completed the top 10.
In the world championship Vettel extended his lead. Alonso and Hamilton walked past Raikkonen. With 46 points ahead of Alonso Vettel after the race had the largest ever point lead in his Formula 1 career. The first three positions in the Constructors remained unchanged.
Comments of the first three riders
"I do not think we expected to be dominant here. The fact is that this all took us by surprise. It is a great result. When we went into the race we knew our race pace compared to Mercedes gives us perhaps a small advantage, but we did not know where we stand in comparison to others, especially Ferrari. And Lotus saw very quickly under dry conditions. It was not clear whether the rain would begin at the end of the race, so we continued to make pressure. The projection, which we possessed at that time, meant that we were able to control the race from there. The last few laps were not too stressful. "
" Today's result shows that the output of qualifying has little to do with the result on Sunday. Even if I had started from pole, I would still finish the race on the second position in my opinion, because Vettel was faster. At the start, we immediately made up a few places, and in a short sequence I passed first button, then Rosberg and Hamilton, so I found myself at six seconds behind Vettel again. But if you look at the distance of 16 seconds at the end, we can congratulate him and his team. The car was working well in all conditions, first with a full load of fuel on board, and then end up easier. Add to that the extra speed that we had on the line, meant that we could overtake without the need to have too many rounds. We know that we have made a step forward, and that we have made good bit of competitiveness that we lost in the last race. In Monza and Singapore, we will see in this process the next steps. The updates that we used in this race, worked well, even if they were intended for this particular course, they are the result of work that is available 24 hours a day at home and done at the track. This can be voted us optimistic for the coming races, because our goal still remains the same, namely to fight to the end for the title. "
" Today I have everything squeezed out of the car, which I could, but we just were not as fast as Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso. I had a good start and was in my opinion good turn one out. But Sebastian grabbed me exit of the Eau Rouge and I could not do much to defend myself: I changed once the line of what is allowed, but then I had to let him go. After that it was very difficult to stay with him and just as was the case later in the race with Fernando. We have worked well this weekend, but Spa and Monza are due to the low air resistance always special tracks. I believe that we will be competitive again in Singapore. The third and fourth are still a great team result for us and this positive finding, we will take to the next race. "
Message list
Classifications
Qualifying
Race
WM stands after the race
, The first ten of the race were 25, 18, 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2 and 1 point (s).