Race Review: Spa

Sophie Almeida
Aug 29, 2021
3 min read

So Spa.... what a mess... officially the shortest F1 race ever with Russell on the podium and Mazepin taking fastest lap - what a rollercoaster.

FP1 was topped by Bottas, with Verstappen second and Gasly third. FP2 saw Verstappen at the top, followed by Bottas and Hamilton, with FP3 finishing with Verstappen then Perez and Hamilton going fastest.

Qualifying was wild. The extremely wet conditions saw the session delayed, with Mazepin, Raikkonen, Schumacher, Tsunoda and Giovinazzi out at the end of Q1. It was then a shock Q2 exit for the Ferraris of Leclerc and Sainz, with Latifi, Alonso and Stroll also put at the end of Q2. Q3 then started however the conditions were terrible. Vettel was immediately on the radio saying the session needed to be red flagged, and quickly after Norris had a horrific crash at Eau Rouge, hitting the wall and spinning across the track. Vettel stopped to check on him and luckily he was okay and cleared after a trip to the hospital. After the clean up, the session restarted. Out of nowhere, Russell put in a purple sector 1 and 2 taking provisional pole. Hamilton couldn't beat his time, neither could Perez or Bottas, with Verstappen just shaving a few seconds off it. This meant George Russell in a Mercedes would be starting P2 on the grid....

But both Stroll and Bottas had 5 place grid penalties from causing the collisions at Turn 1 in Hungary before the summer break. A change to the rear wing assembly of Raikkonen's car meant a pit lane start for the driver, with Norris needing a new gear box after the crash, so also dropping 5 places on the grid. The starting grid was as follows:

P1 Verstappen, P2 Russell, P3 Hamilton, P4 Ricciardo, P5 Vettel, P6 Gasly, P7 Perez, P8 Ocon, P9 Leclerc, P10 Latifi, P11 Sainz, P12 Alonso, P13 Bottas, P14 Giovinazzi, P15 Norris, P16 Tsunoda, P17 Schumacher, P18 Mazepin, P19 Stroll and PIT Raikkonen.

Then on Sunday nothing really happened...

Sergio Perez hit the wall on the way to the grid taking himself out of the race. The start was then delayed, followed by a formation lap and one race lap behind the safety car before a red flag. Then a delay came over over 3 hours, in which the Red Bull mechanics managed to fix Perez's car and it was allowed to rejoin the race from the pit lane. The tricky thing was that the race has to be finished within 3 hours of the starting procedures but the rain was not letting up... With one hour to go, the race director and stewards were allowed to pause the clock under "Force Majore' meaning the 1 hour left on the clock was on hold.

At 18:17 local time, the race restarted under safety car. The conditions were still terrible with no visibility due to the spray. The drivers did 2 laps under the safety car before another red flag. However these two laps were essential. They meant that it officially counted as a race, and therefore it could be classified with half points awarded. Whether or not it was the correct decision to allow the race to restart just for 2 laps to be able to classify it, is a hot topic...

But it did mean there was a podium, which was George Russell's first in F1. With Stroll receiving a 10 second penalty due to changing the rear wing assembly during the delays, the final race results were as follows:

P1 Verstappen, P2 Russell, P3 Hamilton, P4 Ricciardo, P5 Vettel, P6 Gasly, P7 Ocon, P8 Leclerc, P9 Latifi, P10 Sainz, P11 Alonso, P12 Bottas, P13 Giovinazzi, P14 Norris, P15 Tsunoda, P16 Schumacher, P17 Mazepin, P18 Raikkonen, P19 Perez and P20 Stroll. Mazepin was awarded fastest lap however did not receive the half point as he did not finish in the top 10.

As there is no race to review, instead of the usual, we thought we would share our favourite moments from Sunday:

1. The Aston Martin vs Haas football game, ft Vettel and Schumacher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljxk8VHN7B0

2. The Red Bull engineer stacking it on the way to get parts for Checo's car