Round 13/23: Review of the Belgian Grand Prix Saturday

Sprint Shootout

Max Verstappen took the pole position of the sprint shootout by eleven-thousandths of a second ahead of the McLaren of Oscar Piastri. It was another exceptional performance by the young rookie as the top 3 were separated by just 2 hundreds of a second.

The conditions in the sprint shootout were almost similar to the qualifying session yesterday and this time around teams had better idea about the conditions and the transition times from inters to slicks. Yuki Tsunoda, Valtteri Bottas, Kevin Magnussen and Zhou Guanyu finished in P16 to P19 as they were eliminated in Q1. The Hass of Nico Hulkenberg waited to cross the line to have the advantage over the earlier runners but poor planning from Hass prevented him from crossing the flag in time, eliminating him in Q1 again albeit without setting even a time today.

In Q2, the teams were confused whether to run on intermediates or on mediums as a tire change would cost upwards of 5 minutes due to the length of the track. 13 out of the 15 cars opted to go out on the inters with only the likes of Fernando Alonso and Alex Albon waiting till the end to go out on the mediums. Perhaps, it was the extra knowledge of the transition times that eliminated the likes of Alonso and Albon during Q2 which ended prematurely by Lance Stroll’s crash on mediums bringing out the red flag. Stroll changed his tyres from inters to mediums not softs as the track was not declared wet by FIA. Logan Sargeant had a spin during his flying lap and did not post a time. Daniel Ricciardo was the lone driver who set a time but eliminated in Q2 as he finished P11.

In Q3, all the drivers ran on new softs and during the initial runs it was Lewis Hamilton who held provisional pole. Hamilton couldn’t improve much in his second run as he was impeded by George Russel who ran wide but joined the track blocking the path of his own teammate. Oscar Piastri so far had a brilliant weekend except for sector 3 during Q3 of qualifying yesterday, which ultimately cost him a position in the top 5. Today, however, he was relentless from the start and only Max Verstappen could top him in the end by the barest of margins. Carlos Sainz finished in P3, only 0.025 seconds away from pole. Charles Leclerc made a mistake in his lap which cost him approximately 4 tenths but still managed to be on the second row of the grid. Pierre Gasly finished an impressive P6 behind Lando Norris and ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Sergio Perez, Esteban Ocon and George Russel.

Sprint Race

It was yet again a dominant performance from Max Verstappen in the wet as he clinched his second sprint victory in 2023. Oscar Piastri and Pierre Gasly were impressive behind him finishing P2 and P3. Oscar lead his first laps of his F1 carrer today and Pierre Gasly defended brilliantly against Lewis Hamilton for nearly 3 laps to finally bring some smiles into the Alpine camp.

The sprint race was initally supposed to be for 15 laps but due to rain and the subsequent start behind the safety car, it was shortened to 11 laps. As per the rules, any cars starting behind the safety car should be on full wet tires and as the track was drying quickly, the conditions became more suitable for intermediates. This meant that at the start of the race, the teams had to pit half of the cars for intermediates and in the subsequent lap, the other half. Max Verstappen was the only top driver who stayed out during the first lap and lost track position to Oscar Piastri when he pitted on lap 2. Pierre Gasly gained positions during the pit stops emerging out in P3 behind Oscar and Max.

Fernando Alonso spun out on lap 3 which brought out the safety car again for another two laps. Max overtook Oscar immediately at the restart and quickly build up his lead to over 6 seconds. Sergio Perez in P4 and Lewis Hamilton in P5, battled it out for P4 and touched when Lewis understeered into the side of Perez. There was a dent in the side of Perez’s car and this caused him to lose speed and he lost 3 positions in a single lap. Ultimately, he spun while defending against Lando Norris and subsequently Red Bull retired his car. Lewis was handed a 5 second penalty for causing the collision which dropped him from P4 to P7.

Daniel Ricciardo benefitted from Sergio Perez retiring from the race as he jumped into P8 and was running in points until Lap 10. On the penultimate lap, George Russel overtook the Alphatauri dropping him to P9 and further to P10 by Esteban. It was a still a good result for Ricciardo as his teammate could only manage P18 in the other Alphatauri.

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