Button dominates Spa after start mayhem

Four weeks of waiting for the summer break to end, four days of anticipation, 1 day of washed out practice, 1 hour of squeezed in work trying to find the right balance for your car, 1 hour of maximum attack to try for the perfect lap. Five seconds before the lights go on, hands tighten on the wheel, engine notes rise…Lights out

Jenson Button should support Lewis Hamilton many Formula 1 commentators said, including this one, but what do they know. Button utterly dominated the Belgian Grand Prix weekend in his McLaren, taking a breath taking pole position on Saturday and then becoming the first driver this year to lead every lap as he took a serene but very fast Sunday drive to victory.

He was untroubled and untouchable, measuring his supreme pace to also look after his tyres and make a one stop strategy work for him. Such was his control on the race, we hardly saw him on the television coverage, but it was brilliant drive that throws away any issues about him playing a supporting role; he lies only 16 points behind his team mate Lewis Hamilton.

He got a great start, leading into the first corner and took himself out of Romain Grosjeans bowling range which took out four cars including the Lotus, Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari, Hamilton and Sergio Perez in the Sauber. The safety car was duly deployed and on resumption of the race he immediately pulled out a 2.8 second lead over Nico Hulkenberg’s Force India.

The next few laps he continued to increase his lead by seconds rather than tenths, nothing could stop him. The driver and team didn’t blink and react to people stopping for tyres early and immediately setting quicker times, he could feel his tyres coming back to him; it wasn’t the time to pit.

He eventually did pit on lap 21 for the harder tyres, one lap shy of half distance, he came out in the lead and from then on no one was anywhere near. If anyone had come to challenge he looked more than capable of sticking in a fast one to maintain the gap, like he had done since Q2 on Saturday. In other words, today he just didn’t look like losing.

He’s still 63 points behind Alonso, that’s 2 wins and a third place behind so he’s by no means thrown himself right back in the mix for the title, but this season is manic, anything can happen, all Button knows is he has to repeat this exceptional form again and again; time for 2009 in reverse.

The Crash

Four weeks of waiting for the summer break to end, four days of anticipation, 1 day of washed out practice, 1 hour of squeezed in work trying to find the right balance for your car, 1 hour of maximum attack to try for the perfect lap. Five seconds before the lights go out, hands tighten on the wheel, engine notes rise.

Smoke is pouring from a car in front. Five lights on, a Williams can’t contain itself any longer and goes early, lights out. You’re away to the first corner, a good start, but then a touch and bang. Cars and debris everywhere, race over in five seconds.

Grosjean, Hamilton, Alonso and Perez all experienced this in what could have been a horrible accident, as it was they were all fine.

Grosjean got a good start from 8^th and was alongside Hamilton, Lewis was already nearly against the right hand wall, but Grosjean kept coming, clipping the McLaren’s front left which sent him spiralling out of control into the back of the Lotus.

Grosjean catapulted towards Perez’s Sauber and launched over the top of that and just missed Alonso’s head. Perez bounded into Pastor Maldonado’s Williams spinning it round, while Hamilton crushed into the side of the Ferrari.

Kobayashi had a slow start from 2^nd and was caught up in the incident but somehow managed to avoid any significant damage despite what looked like a few decent hits from other cars but his race was ruined.

Grosjean has to take the blame for this, he had room on his left to spare and didn’t need to squeeze Lewis like that, it effectively ruined two of the championship challengers days and it could have been so much worse.

Lewis already seemed in a bad mood with various deleted tweets and complaints about his set up. He went the wrong way with the car this weekend and just didn’t have the pace, so it’s debatable how well he might have gone in the race, but on a day when Alonso had his first moment of bad luck this year, he’ll be disappointed not to have made it count. He cannot afford any more non finishes if he wants to remain in this title battle.

Even worse for the Sauber’s after a brilliant qualifying of 2^nd and 4^th was ruined in a few hundred metres. They were confident of a good race pace too, still if they were quick in Spa that should carry across to Monza next week.

Alonso will just be thankful he didn’t get hurt, but also that he’d built up a sizeable title lead. He’s still nearly a race win ahead despite his first non-finish in 24 races. Felipe Massa looked fast in the Ferrari today, so Alonso could well have expected to challenge for a potential podium. He’ll head to Monza ready to get back on track in front of the tifosi.

Penalties

Grosjean has been involved in too many collisions on the first lap this year, which is perhaps why he’s now received a one race ban for the incident. I’m not sure he deserved that as it wasn’t deliberate, but I guess it certainly was reckless. Jerome D’Ambrosio the former Virgin racer and Lotus 3^rd driver looks set to stand in.

Maldonado on the other hand perhaps should have been banned already this year as he doesn’t seem to learn from his misdemeanours. This weekend alone he received a 3 place grid penalty in qualifying for impeding Hulkenberg and now two five place grid penalties for Monza.

One for the jump start which if Pastor hadn’t done he might have avoided the incident, as it was he survived but made a mess of the restart, collided with Timo Glock’s Marussia, and that was that, day done and the second penalty earned.

Sebastian Vettel becomes the main challenger

Sebastian Vettel took advantage of the loss of Alonso and Hamilton to storm up the field. Starting 10^th, he actually ended up down in 12^th after the first lap but engaged battle mode to fight towards the podium. Despite wondering whether Red Bull should pit him early, they were the only other team to make a one stop work.

After great moves on the likes of Webber and Massa (twice) and while others stopped around him, he found the clean air he wanted and put in the lap times to keep him ahead in 2nd and like Button looked after his tyres.

It would have been interesting to see just how well Vettel might have done if he’d qualified a bit higher, but whatever it was a very impressive drive and brought him to within a race win of Alonso, something I don't think he was expecting at the start of the day hence his obvious delight at the finish.

In the other Red Bull Webber finished up 6th from 12th on the grid. He didn't seem to have the same incisiveness in overtaking that his team mate had today and couldn't find the clean air he needed on his 2 stop strategy. He's still third in the title race, but has not looked that great since Silverstone as Vettel now takes the leading position in the team.

Qualified higher, but still no win for Kimi

Kimi Raikkonen qualified 3^rd and finished 3^rd, but he had to make quite the effort to be disappointed with another podium. He had great fights with various drivers, but particularly Schumacher which culminated with a move into Eau Rouge, shooting passed as the Mercedes didn’t seem able to accelerate as effectively from La Source.

He was tipped for the win, but Lotus weren’t able to tune their double DRS because of the rain in practice, but I’d still watch out for them in Italy when they should have it attached. Kimi took his 6^th podium this season, he’s got to win one at some point surely if he truly wants to make a bid for the title. 

Despite the lack of win he's now only 33 points behind Alonso and Lotus don't look like dropping off the pace any time soon.

Schuey and Mercedes grab some points

Michael Schumacher was the third driver to try a one stop, but once Kimi got by and he had Hulkenberg, Webber, and Massa all lined up behind him, he knew it was over, the team pitted him for a second time and he looked like he was about to begin a charge back towards them however, a loss of 6^th gear prevented him.

Still it was an impressive drive from only the 2^nd man to compete in 300 grand prix. After qualifying only 13^th, he might not have thought he’d be able to compete, but he was well up for the fight today. 

5^th after the opening lap crash, Schumacher executed a couple of great passes to be 3^rd, particularly on Kimi, around the outside into Les Combes, which he managed again later in the race after Kimi passed him into the Bus Stop chicane, only for him to activate DRS and fly back around on the Kemmel straight. Shame more mechanical trouble prevented a better day than 7^th.

His team mate Nico Rosberg was often pictured holding people up but actually wasn’t far off grabbing the final point as he came from the back of the grid. However without the crash Mercedes might not have even been near the points, which is a sad reflection of how their season has gone after so much promise.

Rest of the top 10

Force India took advantage of the crash so that at the restart they were running 2^nd and 4^th. Hulkenberg seemed able to maintain his impressive pace, but di Resta did not, blaming a KERS failure. As the Scotsman slipped down the field to finish 10^th Hulkenberg was always in contention for a top five finish, and had a great afternoon.

Felipe Massa had a fine drive up from 14^th to 5^th. 11^th once the safety car came in he gradually made his way through the pack to end up not all that far behind Hulkenberg. He was stuck together with Webber most of the time, but finally made his move 8 laps from the end, and then kept him behind despite being under pressure. More drives like this Felipe.

Toro Rosso took 8^th and 9^th for Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo respectively. This team really needed some points and it was nice to finally see both these drivers get some time to show they can race and mix it up with the top drivers. They’ve not really had much of an opportunity to do that this year.

Special note for Marussia drivers Glock and Charles Pic who looked like they were having an epic battle swapping positions all over the place. Glock eventually won.

So we leave Spa and head to another classic venue at Monza next weekend. The championship lead has closed up for the first time since Silverstone and while some people head there with renewed optimism there are some just full of frustration. Grosjean will not be going there, but for the rest battle is quickly resumed and all could change again this time next weekend.

all photo's taken from autosport.com