Belgian Grand Prix 2011 – Race Report

Sebastian Vettel placed one hand firmly on this year's championship crown after taking a seventh win of the season at the Belgian Grand Prix. Despite struggling with tyre wear early in the race, the Red Bull driver settled into a rhythm during the latter half that put him out of reach of any of his rivals. Mark Webber in the second Red Bull was able to recover from a tardy start to complete a one-two for the Austrian team, whilst Jenson Button charged through the pack having qualified a lowly thirteenth on the grid to round out the podium.

Vettel was able to overcome the changing conditions during qualifying on Saturday to take yet another pole position, with Lewis Hamilton only able to come within half a second of the German in the final reckoning. Webber lined up in third place, ahead of the Ferrari of Felipe Massa, the Mercedes of Nico Rosberg and a surprisingly quick Jaime Alguersauri for Toro Rosso. Like Button, Fernando Alonso had a difficult afternoon in the sister Ferrari, only managing eighth position, whilst Michael Schumacher also suffered as one of his wheels simply fell off the Mercedes during Q1. The six-time Belgian GP winner was thus relegated to the very back of the grid.

Although qualifying was affected by rain, a totally dry race meant that all top ten runners would begin on the soft compound tyres on which they set their Q3 lap times. Conversely, Button and Schumacher were both able to begin the race on the harder medium compound, a factor that proved instrumental in their gaining of places as the afternoon unfolded. As the lights went out, Vettel's getaway was good enough to see him maintain the lead. Meanwhile, Rosberg hooked up his start perfectly, and after audaciously slithering up the inside of Hamilton, a slow-starting Webber and Massa at La Source, found himself second behind compatriot Vettel.

Webber's sluggish start dropped him down to eighth at the end of the first lap, though he was helped by a collision caused by a somewhat over-exuberant Bruno Senna. In his first F1 race for nine months, he careered his Renault into the sidepod of the hapless Alguersauri, putting the Spaniard immediately out after having achieved his best ever grid position the previous day. Senna was able to continue, but barely a hundred metres later his front wing would break, fly underneath the car and damage the front wing of Button who was running behind. The Brit's car was further damaged by some contact from the rear courtesy of Paul Di Resta, who in turn was harpooned by an over-ambitious lunge from Timo Glock. All of this meant that Button would be obliged to make an early first pit-stop in order to repair the damage.

Senna and Glock were both slapped with drive-through penalties for causing their respective incidents, whilst the Ferraris both weaved their way through the carnage to sit fourth and fifth behind Vettel, Rosberg and Hamilton after the first corner. As the pack headed up through Eau Rouge and down the long Kemmel Straight for the first time, Rosberg took full advantage of his powerful Mercedes powerplant to blast past Vettel and take the lead. Just behind, Hamilton's high-downforce setting also left him vulnerable on the approach to Les Combes, allowing Massa to take third on the first lap and the other Ferrari of Alonso at the same place on lap later.

By the end of the second lap, the order was Rosberg from Vettel, Massa, Alonso, Hamilton and two men who had taken advantage of the first corner chaos to sit in sixth and seventh places ahead of Webber – Sebastien Buemi and Sergio Perez. Sadly for the pair of them though, contact was made which cost the former his rear wing and the latter his front wing. Buemi was forced to retire, ending an extremely brief race for the Toro Rosso team, whilst Perez was forced to pit for a new nose before having his race further disrupted by a penalty awarded for his part in the collision. Yet more contact with Bruno Senna towards the end of the race damaged his suspension and put the Mexican driver out of the race.

Back at the front, Vettel wasted no time in re-taking the lead from Rosberg when the DRS, located down the Kemmel Straight on this occasion, was activated. Massa on the other hand soon found himself held up by the slower Rosberg, as evidenced by Alonso and Hamilton both also soon joining a queue behind the silver machine. Alonso benefitted from this to dive past his teammate at Rivage corner, and two laps later deprived Rosberg of second place in the DRS zone. Hamilton was able to slide his McLaren up the inside of Massa at Pouhon just after the Brazilian lost out to Alonso, and then became the latest man to out-drag Rosberg with the aid of DRS to move up into third.

This became second when Vettel opted to make an early first pit-stop for fresh soft tyres at the end of lap 5. The new race leader Alonso made his pit-stop three laps later on lap 8, followed by Massa on lap 9, Hamilton on lap 10 and Rosberg on lap 11. The net order at the front remained the same after this initial round of pit-stops, with one exception. Webber had pitted for medium tyres on lap 3, and as such had gained considerable ground on the leaders in clean air. He ended up a net third place, though this was briefly second as he executed a brave pass around the outside of Alonso through Eau Rouge as the Ferrari exited the pits. By the end of the next lap though, Alonso had heated up his new tyres and subsequently had little trouble in wresting second place back from the Australian.

The Spaniard also negotiated the yet-to-stop Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi on the following lap, but the same could not be said for Hamilton. As he passed the Japanese driver along the Kemmel Straight with the help of the DRS, Kobayashi's low-downforce configuration enabled to him to remain side-by-side with Hamilton. Presuming he had cleared Kobayashi, Hamilton drew left as he approached Les Combes, resulting in contact. This put Hamilton in the barriers and out the race, and led to the appearance of the Safety Car as the debris was cleared.

Vettel leapt on the opportunity to make a 'free' pit-stop, resuming third behind Alonso and Webber, and ahead of Massa, Rosberg and Adrian Sutil. At the restart on lap 17, the order of the race was shuffled once more as Vettel eased past teammate Webber for second and Rosberg took fourth place away from Massa, again profiting from DRS in the process. With Vettel now in second place and on far fresher tyres, it was only a matter of time before he found his way back to the lead of the race. The deal was done on lap 18 at the usual DRS-assisted location of Les Combes.

Further back, Schumacher and Button had managed to sneak into seventh and eighth places behind Sutil courtesy of having gotten the harder compound tyres out of the way at the start of the race. Having recovered from nineteenth place after his first stop, Button was very much on a roll as he used his soft tyres to good effect, overtaking Schumacher, Sutil, Massa and Rosberg in the space of five laps to reach an impressive fourth place. This became first place as the leading trio all made their next pit-stops between laps 29 and 31, though Vettel breezed by Button to re-assume the lead at Les Combes on lap 32 before the sole remaining McLaren driver made his next pit-stop at the end of that lap.
He re-joined the action in fourth place, seven seconds adrift of Webber in third, but both soft tyre-shod men began to make significant inroads on second-place man Alonso, whose Ferrari was struggling on the medium compound. Webber made his move on lap 37 at, you guessed it, Les Combes, whilst Button emulated the move five laps later to move up into third place. There was no catching Vettel ahead however, even in spite of the German having to finish the race on medium tyres like Alonso. He cruised to an untroubled seventeenth career victory to extend his championship lead over runner-up Webber to a huge 92 points. Button's third place moves him up to fourth place in the standings ahead of the non-scoring Hamilton.

Fourth place for Alonso was enough to see him move into third place in the championship, ten points behind Webber, whilst Schumacher passed both Sutil and teammate Rosberg in the closing stages to take a superb fifth position on his twentieth anniversary race. Rosberg hung onto sixth ahead of Sutil, with Massa dropping to eighth position after an extra pit-stop caused by a puncture. The top ten were completed by Vitaly Petrov for Renault and Pastor Maldonado for Williams, who put in a strong drive to take his first ever career point. Paul Di Resta drove solidly in a solid if unspectacular fashion to finish eleventh, ahead of a recovering Kobayashi and an embattled Senna.

Jarno Trulli came home a strong fourteenth position to win the battle of the new-team drivers ahead of teammate Heikki Kovalainen and the second Williams of Rubens Barrichello who lost time late on after shedding his front wing on the back of Kobayashi's car. Rounding out the finishers were Jerome D'Ambrosio, who became the first Belgian driver to contest his home race since 1994, his Virgin teammate Timo Glock and the solitary Hispania of Vitantonio Liuzzi – Daniel Ricciardo in the sister car failed to finish due to mechanical woes.

After Vettel's convincing victory at a track where the Red Bull was supposedly not as fast as its rivals, it's becoming extremely difficult to see anybody else clinching this year's championship with just seven races left. It certainly looks as if the champion-elect has put the difficulties of the last few races behind him, and that new-found confidence is seemingly making him almost impossible to beat whatever the circumstances. We can only hope that the chasing pack can make the remaining races as exciting as this one has been.