Spa Spectacular

Spa is a track that has it all. The picturesque location. Fast corners. Iconic corners. It's a track that drivers’ love coming to. A race that fans always look forward to seeing. A race that every driver wants to win.

Formula 1 has been on hiatus over the past five weeks. It has felt like a lifetime since we last heard that roaring sound of V8 engines, but no need to worry any more. Formula 1 is back this weekend as we head off to Spa for round 12.

Going into this weekend, Fernando Alonso leads the drivers’ championship by 40 points from Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel. Red Bull Racing are away with the fairies in the constructors title, 53 points ahead of McLaren, who are in a close battle with Lotus and Ferrari round up the top four.

Red Bull dominated last year’s race with Sebastian Vettel grabbing pole position and the win. He also lead a Red Bull 1-2 with team mate Mark Webber, and Jenson Button rounded off the podium spots, as team mate Lewis Hamilton failed to finish the race after he had a collision with the Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi.

So what can we expect from this year’s race?

The Belgium Grand Prix brings much excitement and we have seen some action packed races over the years. This is a medium down force circuit and is similar to Canada. During the summer break teams haven’t been allowed to work on their cars, but leading up to the shutdown, work has been done to enable teams to come back with a vengeance and fight for the win in this first race back.  

Weather is always an issue when the Formula 1 circus heads to Spa, as it just loves to rain. (Even though rain isn’t forecast for qualifying or the race this weekend.) Due to the length of the circuit (a little over 7km) it can be raining in one part of the circuit but not the other. This can be a factor in qualifying, as you need to be on the right tyre at the right time.

Tyres have been one of the main talking points this season, teams and drivers’ not having a clear understanding of when the ‘drop off’ point is. It is crucial to be on the right strategy. We’ve already seen teams and drivers’ get this wrong in the first half of season.
Pirelli are bringing the hard and medium compound to Spa this weekend, which were last used in Malaysia. It will be interesting to see how the drivers’ and teams use these tyres to their advantage.

Everything is still to play for in both championships. We’ve seen before that the smallest mistakes can be what it takes to make you world champion, or for you to finish as the runner up.