2025 Belgian Grand Prix - [RACE] discussion thread 🏎️
ROUND 13: 🇧🇪 Belgium
FORMULA 1 MOËT & CHANDON BELGIAN GRAND PRIX 2025
Circuit stats
- First Grand Prix: 1950
- Number of laps: 44
- Circuit Length: 7.004 km
- Race Distance: 308.052 km
- Lap record: 1:44.701 Sergio Perez (2024)
- 2024 winner: George Russel
Apologies in advance that the post-race topic will come before the race ends. I should have known with Spa to add a couple of hours in the schedule -__-
in the word of Hamilton: unacceptable
/s
Critical info in case you missed it.
The Beekeeper? The Jason Statham one that I still haven't heard a single thing about? Weird choice for the F1 marketing department to assign that 😂
Well I miss the snapshot of Leclerc favorite pre race meal being pasta with oil and Parmesan… totally ground breaking too. Thanks god the rain stopped
Red flag
Meanwhile cars have inters bolted on. So just put on the fucking wets and go racing and let the drivers use their fucking judgements. It's not fucking rocket appliances.
It’s a visibility issue, full wets would only exacerbate the problem… I agree with the frustration but I must admit it makes sense
I don't think the full wets would make things worse even, it's these fucking ground effect regs diffusers that cause all the spray. Which would be acceptable if we still had good racing in the dry, but the FIA have given up on that too and just let the teams bring back dirty air anyway.
Aston Martin ahead in the race
Let’s go. Rain time 🌧️
Spa 2021 flashbacks intensifies
yeah.
Memory lane for Hamilton & Rosberg.
what a race by Hamilton in 15 laps he is #7. well done.
Everything's aligned for him so far. Good payoff for the wet setup, perfect timing on reading the crossover and good driving from him too of course.
yeah will be interesting if it can be on the podium.
I think there is close to 0 chance he gets a podium, but it's still been a solid recovery drive.
yeah pity
Calm and solid race by Piastri. Few fumbles by Norris including the start, but good perf by Mcclaren. Good race for the juniors (no DNF). Good perf by Ferrari with podium for Leclerc and come back from Hamilton to 7th from 18th.
Drivers are allowed to exceed 10 car lengths distance to the next car behind the safety car as long as they stay below 20 car lengths.
"30 car lengths shalt thou not be apart, neither be thou apart 5, excepting that thou then proceed to be apart 10. 50 car lengths is right out."
Well... let's see whether that intensity is raceable. If not, they won't start they race for a while, since there is more of this rain coming after that from W-NW.
Edit: This is exciting. No sign of delaying the start. Rain will wind down a bit after the start, before picking up again. And maybe even with a short heavy downpour too. The drivers really have to prove themselves.
Rain in Spa. My body is ready.
Today’s race: the weather report.
My god, when they start with driver's food and driver's prerace routine you know the broadcasters are pushing their limits.
Hamilton flying with that wet setup, has to be wishing they green flagged earlier.
yeah I love when he got that type of mojo.
We might get a couple laps towards the end of the 3 hour race window, but it's never going to be a full race today. Sad times.
Edit: crofty and brundle just said in commentary that the 3 hours hasn't actually started because the race never started. I'm more optimistic with this information.
Race resuming in 13 minutes!
and Piastri take the lead
Rain and F1 :(
Could have got the race going already ....fucking melts !
This is the best conditions will be for the foreseeable future. Stupid to not get underway
Yes, even the commentators suggested on the formation lap, that this was the best time to get going...🤷🏻♂️
yeah weird. must be quite tricky for the driver to start/stop/start
They should have just had the standing start and kept on driving.
Accuweather radar shows the clouds breaking up soon
Is that only my broadcast, or did the F1 intro just have a different music/score than usual?
On sky they had a different intro. It didn't sound like a cover of the theme either.
F1TV or some other broadcaster? I thought it was the same score.
Austrian TV broadcaster. Sounded like it may have been part of the F1 movie score? Not sure. But definitely not the usual intro score.
Yep. It was a Hans Zimmer intro to promote the movie. They uploaded the it on YouTube:
Let's go #2
Was hoping for rain for an interesting race but it looks like the monkey's paw clenched too hard.
Red Bull yesterday really was like "we'll optimize the car for a rain race although we know that rain races never fully get underway in Spa nowadays"
Not just in Spa to be fair.
We already had rainy races this year. But at a track like Spa, visibility problems make that simply not possible to safely have a race happen.
There is being cautious, and then there is whatever the fuck this was. Even the drivers weren't happy about, for example Max post race: https://dubz.co/c/e3cfcd
So far I have only seen Max and Red Bull complain. Which makes sense because they set up their car for a wet race.
The more relevant question is the thoughts of drivers who drove in the mid-field or end of the field. Because those are the ones who would be in danger, not Max Verstappen in P4.
Let's goooo
25%
Lap one Lando moment....
He's being out classed by Oscar this year.
yeah total fumble
what a race by Aston Martin after 4 laps
Good to see Antonelli making some moves, the kid could use a confidence boost.
yeah I cannot imagine at 18years old this type of pressure
Curious if the medium will actually last 14 more laps or not.
I hope not so we can have some surprise
no video on Russel and Verstappen ... is there a broadcaster blackout ;)
Oof that front left tire change for Norris was sloppy.
yeah 9 sec now..
Go Lando.
so intermediate to start ?
Hamilton complaining he's lift-and-coasting and still not saving enough, looks like they could have gambled on underfueling as well?