Sebastian’s podium vanishes, Kimi seventh – The Spa race didn’t disappoint those hoping for plenty of action. Both drivers made a good start, immediately moving up a few places. A lot of overtaking and different strategies conditioned the outcome of the race: Kimi Raikkonen pitted twice, while Sebastian Vettel was the only driver to try for a one stop. With two laps to go, the German was third, but his right rear tyre suddenly let go, robbing him of a place on the podium. Kimi Raikkonen finished seventh, after a great climb up the order. The win went to Lewis Hamilton, who finished ahead of his Mercedes team-mate, Nico Rosberg and Romain Grosjean in the Lotus. [via ferrarif1.com]
| Pos | Driver | Car | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1h23m40.387s |
| 2 | Nico Rosberg | Mercedes | 2.058s |
| 3 | Romain Grosjean | Lotus/Mercedes | 37.988s |
| 4 | Daniil Kvyat | Red Bull/Renault | 45.692s |
| 5 | Sergio Perez | Force India/Mercedes | 53.997s |
| 6 | Felipe Massa | Williams/Mercedes | 55.283s |
| 7 | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | 55.703s |
| 8 | Max Verstappen | Toro Rosso/Renault | 56.076s |
| 9 | Valtteri Bottas | Williams/Mercedes | 1m01.040s |
| 10 | Marcus Ericsson | Sauber/Ferrari | 1m31.234s |
| 11 | Felipe Nasr | Sauber/Ferrari | 1m42.311s |
| 12 | Sebastian Vettel | Ferrari | Tyre |
| 13 | Fernando Alonso | McLaren/Honda | 1 Lap |
| 14 | Jenson Button | McLaren/Honda | 1 Lap |
| 15 | Roberto Merhi | Marussia/Ferrari | 1 Lap |
| 16 | Will Stevens | Marussia/Ferrari | 1 Lap |
| – | Carlos Sainz | Toro Rosso/Renault | Retirement |
| – | Daniel Ricciardo | Red Bull/Renault | Retirement |
| – | Pastor Maldonado | Lotus/Mercedes | Retirement |
| – | Nico Hulkenberg | Force India/Mercedes | Not started |
DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP:
| Pos | Driver | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Lewis Hamilton | 227 |
| 2 | Nico Rosberg | 199 |
| 3 | Sebastian Vettel | 160 |
| 4 | Kimi Raikkonen | 82 |
| 5 | Felipe Massa | 82 |
| 6 | Valtteri Bottas | 79 |
| 7 | Daniil Kvyat | 57 |
| 8 | Daniel Ricciardo | 51 |
| 9 | Romain Grosjean | 38 |
| 10 | Max Verstappen | 26 |
| 11 | Sergio Perez | 25 |
| 12 | Nico Hulkenberg | 24 |
| 13 | Felipe Nasr | 16 |
| 14 | Pastor Maldonado | 12 |
| 15 | Fernando Alonso | 11 |
| 16 | Carlos Sainz | 9 |
| 17 | Marcus Ericsson | 7 |
| 18 | Jenson Button | 6 |
| 19 | Roberto Merhi | 0 |
| 20 | Will Stevens | 0 |
CONSTRUCTORS’ CHAMPIONSHIP:
| Pos | Constructor | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mercedes | 426 |
| 2 | Ferrari | 242 |
| 3 | Williams/Mercedes | 161 |
| 4 | Red Bull/Renault | 108 |
| 5 | Lotus/Mercedes | 50 |
| 6 | Force India/Mercedes | 49 |
| 7 | Toro Rosso/Renault | 35 |
| 8 | Sauber/Ferrari | 23 |
| 9 | McLaren/Honda | 17 |
| 10 | Marussia/Ferrari | 0 |
OTHER STUFF
Race: First lap https://t.co/cK3ryG3UDk #BelgianGP
— Ky (@FiftyBuckss) August 23, 2015
Race: Start replay & Perez on-board https://t.co/FywisFqeIG #BelgianGP
— Ky (@FiftyBuckss) August 23, 2015
Post-Race: Analysis of the start https://t.co/Fm0Y4ulmzq #BelgianGP
— Ky (@FiftyBuckss) August 23, 2015
Raikkonen:”I think my tyres are in pretty good shape. The cars in front of me are struggling” #BelgianGP #F1
— F1 Madness (@F1_Madness) August 23, 2015
Important to remember that Kimi today has used an old engine, not with the 3rd (4/5 tenths slower than the 3rd engine) #Raikkonen
— Gianlu D’Alessandro (@Gianlu_DAle) August 23, 2015
#Vettel‘s run of 21 straight races in the points is over – 6 short of #Raikkonen‘s all-time record of 27 #BelgianGP pic.twitter.com/t4kiDD9DHq
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 23, 2015
QUOTES
From ferrarif1.com – Kimi: “Obviously we cannot be very happy with where we finished, but it’s much better than from where we started. Yesterday we had some issues but today we wanted to get a better end result. My start was pretty bad, I had a lot of wheelspin and then obviously the first corner was not ideal, but I was able to recover quite well. My car was handling pretty well through all the race, only towards the end I ran out of the front tyres. Today we kept doing our best and tried to improve our position, but coming from so far back it was not easy. We keep trying and hopefully we have some more luck on our side in the future, we are doing the right things as a team but all the times something happens and we cannot get the result we expect. Now we go to Monza, our home race: it would be very nice to have a strong weekend there in front of all our fans. Again the track has a lot of straightlines and is not going to be easy against all those cars but we’ll bring some new stuff that hopefully will help us to be in fight.”
From f1i.com – Kimi: “I haven’t seen it [Vettel’s tyre blowout]. I was only told that he had a tyre issue and I saw him on the circuit when I got past him but I don’t know anything else apart from the tyre went; so I’m not the right person to answer, you’ll have to talk to the team. I don’t want to get involved in the whole thing. Obviously it was bad for him, it’s bad for our team to have this issue but I don’t want to get involved in the whole thing. Obviously it’s disappointing, not just for me but for the team. We had two issues this weekend and it hurt on both cars quite badly. Like I said, we are doing the right things as a team, it just seems we’re not really getting the results. We’ll keep working and improving things and hopefully we’ll get the results at some point. We have to be realistic with where we started today after yesterday’s issue. We did our best and obviously its not where we want to finish in seventh place but that was our maximum today.”
#Kimi7:’Today we kept doing our best, but coming from so far it was not easy’ #BelgianGP #redseason pic.twitter.com/58Tq4Higt9
— Scuderia Ferrari (@ScuderiaFerrari) August 23, 2015
Arrivabene: “I must say that Kimi did a true masterpiece in his recovery. He drove very well” #Raikkonen #BelgianGp
— Gianlu D’Alessandro (@Gianlu_DAle) August 23, 2015
KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN SPACE 