Luke’s Weekend Take – Belgian GP 2024

Heading now into FP3 we see the track wet as it is raining, and this meant we will see some wet tyre compounds on track. We see a few drivers coming out on track and as Max Verstappen opted to go out on the inter tyres, we see the Sauber team decide that the full wet tyres were more suitable for the conditions. The conditions were indeed tricky as we immediately see Verstappen run wide on his outlap but still manages to keep going and set a fast time on the inters. 5 minutes into the session we hear Ricciardo saying that he feels like he is losing hydraulics and the team responded that they are checking however they said that nothing seems wrong with the car. After a few minutes Ricciardo comes back on to say that he still feels like something is still off and the team asks him to pit as a precaution and check the car.

We see 2 moments from both Norris and Tsunoda as both go off wide onto the gravel in the same corner but without spinning and kept going which meant the track was getting worse not better. And it was 12 minutes into the session that we actually see the Yellow Flag come out as it shortly changes into a Red Flag as we cut into a shot of Lance Stroll coming to a stop with 3 wheels still properly attached. Upon the replay we see that Stroll was going up the hill of Eau Rouge as his Aston Martin seems to have aqua planed and lost control and goes into a spin which threw him into the barriers hitting his front left wheel and front wing which both broke off.

Session restarts with 34 minutes left on the clock but no one was in a hurry to come back out as the rain intensity was not decreasing and no one wanted to risk getting damage to their car. With 25 minutes left on the clock the Red Flag comes out once more even though there was no drivers out on track, and this was because of the amount of standing water on track. The medical car was out on track just trying to clear some water while also checking the conditions on track as it seems like it wasn’t getting any better. And as we all started to lose hope of any more running, we see some drivers get back in the car as the session was going to restart with 2 mins left on the clock. This meant that cars won’t be actually doing a push lap as the outlap with the wet was over 2 minutes, but this would have still given the drivers a feel of the track.

The track was indeed still very tricky as we see Carlos Sainz go onto the Gravel into the braking zone of Turn 10 as the car locked the wheels and Sainz goes wild, this was despite him being on the full wets. Luckily for Sainz, he did not damage the car and was able to get round to the finish line to take the chequered flag. At the end of the session we see Max Verstappen topping the leaderboard followed by Oscar Piastri and Pierre Gasly forming the top 3 ahead of the qualifying session.

Qualifying is upon us and at the start we get news that there is 80% chance of rain that it will hit during qualifying, and the race director also disabled DRS due to the tricky conditions. And because of this news all cars went to queue at the end of the pitlane so that they get out as soon as possible. Oscar Piastri was complaining in fact that both Haas had a dangerous release in front of him, but I think the stewards disagreed as no action was taken for this. Lights go green and cars don’t waste any time to go out as we hear Norris’s engineer tells him that 8 minutes into the session the rain should be coming, but once Norris did one outlap and was about to start his push lap, he gets another message telling him to make it count as Rain is bound in 2 minutes.

With 10 minutes to go we do hear some news that rain had started going down in turns 4,5 & 6 and it was now or never for everyone to make sure that they make it out of Q1 and with changing conditions like these, it was anyone’s game on who will make it through. We see an incident towards the end of Q1 as we see Zhou Guanyu potentially impeding Max Verstappen and Stewards took note of this and said that they will investigate this after the session ended. After all drivers made their final runs, it was Nico Hulkenberg, Kevin Magnussen, Yuki Tsunoda, Logan Sargeant and Zhou Guanyu who got eliminated in Q1.

Q2 started again with the remaining 15 drivers and they all got going again with the rain still going and with 6 minutes left in the session, Sergio Perez comes on the radio saying that it is raining harder and it seems that Red Bull put him on a push lap a bit too early as a precaution however this nearly cost him as in Q2 we lose Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly, Daniel Ricciardo, Valtteri Bottas and Lance Stroll as Albon was only 0.003 seconds away from Perez’s time.

In Q3 we go again for the final showdown and after the first runs it was Max Verstappen who was finding the time out there as he finds himself on Provisional pole followed by his teammate Sergio Perez and Lewis Hamilton in 3^rd which was looking good for Red Bull given the fact that Max Verstappen will be taking a 10 place grid penalty. For the 2^nd runs it was Red Bull and Ferrari who had the upper hand as they had a fresh set of intermediate tyres while McLaren and Mercedes had to go on their used sets as they were out of new ones. At the end we see Max Verstappen take pole however Charles Leclerc came to ruin the party for Red Bull as he comes in 2^nd ahead of Sergio Perez, Lewis Hamilton, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri, George Russell, Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso and Esteban Ocon came in the Top 10. Charles Leclerc for the 2^nd year running inherits pole to start the race tomorrow as Verstappen gets dropped to P11 and Alex Albon comes in to start in P10.

Who do you think will come out on top tomorrow? Will Verstappen find a way through 10 cars and win once again? Or will the faster McLarens keep him behind to come and claim another victory? Tune in tomorrow to find out.