FORMULA ONE:SEBASTIAN VETTEL drove around tyre degradation problems to claim his seventh victory of the season at the Belgian Grand Prix yesterday, with team-mate Mark Webber second to give Red Bull Racing its second one-two finish of the year.
With Spa hit by heavy rain in the early part of the weekend, teams went into Saturday’s qualifying session with little idea of how their dry tyres would behave and in the final part of Saturday’s qualifying session a number of top drivers, including Vettel and Webber, suffered serious degradation to their front tyres.
The blistering was so severe that that before the race start several teams asked the FIA to allow them to abandon the sets they were carrying over from qualifying to the start. The governing body, however, denied the request and Vettel and Webber were forced to start on the blistered rubber.
The blistering was believed to have been caused by the camber at which their wheels had been set. With no change allowed to set-up before the start, it meant any set of tyres taken on during the race would suffer the same inside-shoulder damage sustained by the qualifying fronts. The result was a nervous build-up to the race and an even twitchier start as Webber and Vettel almost stalled as the lights went out.
Webber came off worst, dropping back to 10th, an outcome that led to his decision to trade his damaged tyres for medium compound rubber at the end of lap one. Vettel, though, was able to hold his lead, at least through turn one.
Nico Rosberg had made a phenomenal start from fifth and tucked in behind the champion as, behind, a brief moment of chaos enveloped the chasing pack, sixth-placed Jaime Alguersuari being dumped out of race after he was hit by Bruno Senna. Ahead, Rosberg passed Vettel for the lead, but once up to speed the champion soon fought back and, having reclaimed the lead, he dived for the pits to shed his damaged tyres.
That was the cue for some tense moments on the Red Bull pitwall as they monitored the new set to see how it would behave. But with both drivers setting competitive times on the new rubber, the concerns soon gave way to hope of a possible one-two, especially with Webber prospering on the harder compound. “We made the first stop and I had a bit of a fight with Fernando Alonso,” said Webber.
Alonso had initially seemed ideally placed to grab second place and was keeping pace with Vettel in the opening stages on the soft tyre. But, as has happened so often this season, as soon as he moved to the alternative rubber, he struggled to get heat into the hard compound and was passed by Webber. It wouldn’t be the only set-back for the Spaniard. Ahead though, Vettel had consolidated, and with the behaviour of his soft tyres now properly assessed, he moved comfortably through his remaining stops to claim his first win at Spa-Francorchamps.
With Red Bull scoring a one-two finish, Alonso was left to cling on to third but behind him, drive-of-the-day candidate Jenson Button was closing fast. The McLaren driver, whose team made a tactical error in qualifying to leave him 13th on the grid, had suffered further at the start when debris from Alguersuari’s car damaged his front wing. He pitted after five laps, changed his nose cone and swapped the medium tyres he had started with for the quicker softs. He used three sets and the pace advantage to close down the leaders and eventually reel in Alonso and steal the final podium place.
If Button had a rival for driver of the day, it was surely Michael Schumacher. The seven-time champion celebrated the 20th anniversary of his F1 debut for Jordan over the weekend but, after an accident in qualifying left him starting at the back of the grid, it looked like the party would have a flat ending. Schumacher, though, drove like the champion of old, scything his through the field to claim fifth.
1 S Vettel (Ger) Red Bull 1hr 26mins44.893secs
2 M Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:26:48.634
3 Jenson Button (Gbr) McLaren 1:26:54.562
4 F Alonso (Spa) Ferrari 1:26:58.115
5 M Schumacher (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:27:32.357
6 N Rosberg (Ger) Mercedes GP 1:27:33.567
7 A Sutil (Ger) Force India 1:27:44.606
8 F Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:27:50.969
9 V Petrov (Rus) Renault 1:27:56.810
10 P Maldonado (Ven) Williams 1:28:02.508
11 P di Resta (Gbr) Force India 1:28:08.887
12 K Kobayashi (Jpn) Sauber-Ferrari 1:28:16.869
13 B Senna (Bra) Renault 1:28:17.878
14 J Trulli (Ita) Lotus F1 at 1 Lap
15 H Kovalainen (Fin) Lotus F1 at 1 Lap
16 R Barrichello (Bra) Williams at 1 Lap
17 J d’Ambrosio (Bel) Virgin Racing at 1 Lap
18 T Glock (Ger) Virgin Racing at 1 Lap
19 V Liuzzi (Ita) HRT-F1 at 1 Lap.
DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP
1. S Vettel (Germany) Red Bull 259 points
2. M Webber (Australia) Red Bull 167
3. F Alonso (Spain) Ferrari 157
4. J Button (Britain) McLaren 149
5. L Hamilton (Britain) McLaren 146
6. F Massa (Brazil) Ferrari 74
7. N Rosberg (Germany) Mercedes GP 56
8. M Schumacher (Germany) Mercedes GP 42
9. V Petrov (Russia) Team Lotus 34
10. N Heidfeld (Germany) Team Lotus 34
CONSTRUCTORS: 1. RedBull - Renault 426 points 2. McLaren - Mercedes 295 3. Ferrari 231
4. Mercedes 98 5. Renault 68 6. Sauber - Ferrari 35 7. Force India - Mercedes 32
