Lewis wins; 1-2 for Mercedes & a podium for Lotus

Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes AMG Petronas got his 80th podium at the legendary Spa-Francorchamps circuit for round 11 of the championship, the 2015 Formula 1 Shell Belgian Grand  Prix. Lewis’s win draws him level with the great Ayrton Senna in fourth in the all-time lists. His teammate Nico Rosberg who came in second has 36, in level with two-time champion Graham Hill.

Romain Grosjean of Lotus came in third and with that it was his 10th rostrum of his career, but probably the most unlikely. Grosjean and Lotus last stood on the podium in November 2013, in Austin. He couldn’t hide his delight as he stepped out to take the applause in front of a raucous Spa crowd. The biggest cheers were reserved for Grosjean though, who addressed the crowd in his native tongue, before adding, "It has been an incredible weekend for us. I still can't believe we are on the podium. These guys work so hard to give us this car. Of course at Spa I still remember Turn 1 in 2012, but I think that made me stronger. For us has the prize of a race win."

Meanwhile, Rosberg admitted that the start cost him. "I completely messed up the start. Then I fought my way through and gave it everything, we were both really on the edge all the time. Lewis did a great job and deserved the win. I gave it everything - but not enough. I'm rushing off - we're expecting our first child at any moment!" he said immediately after the race.

Spa Francorchamps is the longest and most exciting track on the Formula One calendar which includes the iconic Eau Rouge flat out uphill corner that is loved and feared by every driver. With new start procedure regulations in place, the race was bound to be exciting and it was.

Before the race even began, Nico Hulkenberg of Sahara Force India and Carlos Sainz Jr of Torro Rosso faced the gremlins early on with problems on their cars. The race start was abandoned after Hulkenberg started waving his hands after the formation lap on the grid and had his Force India car pulled into the garage. On the second formation lap, Sainz came into the pits in his Torro Rosso to retire.

When the lights finally went out, Hamilton jumped to the first corner with a decent un aided start while Rosberg struggled and dropped down the grid. This gave Sergio Perez (Force India) sitting on 4th on the grid to leapfrog to 2nd and challenge Hamilton through Eau Rouge and onto the Kemmel straight. Perez slipstreamed momentarily to the lead only for Hamilton to out-brake him into the turn and maintain his lead and go on to lead the entirety of the race to take the win.

Rosberg fell down the grid due to his poor start but through the race managed to climb up to 2nd.  On the second lap however, it was a sad moment for the Colombian, Pastor Maldonado of Lotus who faced engine problems and was forced to retire.

The grid was shuffled and reshuffled due to numerous and brilliant over takes and moves and also pit strategies that didn’t play too much of a factor, but none the less made a difference. The first set of pit stops came from Daniel Ricciardo, who pitted his Redbull to undercut Perez successfully on lap 8. Valtteri Bottas was having a great race until his first pit stop. Williams brought the Finn into the box, and sent him out on 3 soft tyres and 1 medium tyre. The error caused Bottas a drive through penalty, but he soldiered on with the mixed set, took his penalty on lap 14, then continued on with his stint to his next scheduled pit stop as it didn’t make much of a difference.

The Aussie Redbull driver, Ricciardo, last year’s Belgian GP winner, was having a fantastic race up to the point where his hydraulics gave in on the 20th lap. This forced the smiling Aussie to walk back to the pits, retiring his RB11 F1 car to the marshals.

The second set of stops came in due to the Virtual Safety Car being imposed on the track for the marshals to remove the RB11 off the track and into safety. This reshuffled the pack even more as many cars dived into the pits.

Williams didn’t have an easy day as well as the team was using too much wing which led them to struggle to keep the others at bay. This also gave the spectators a huge show as the battle for 5th to 8th position was fired up and remained until all of them crossed the finish line.

On their 900th Grand Prix entry, Ferrari might have some regets from the weekend and would rather forget than celebrate. With problems faced by Kimi Raikkonen in qualifying and a gearbox change that enforced penalty, the Iceman managed a hard fought 7th place while Sebastian Vettel who was 2 laps away from taking the 3rd spot away from Grosjean, suffered a blown tyre on the Kemmel straight 2 laps to the chequered flag. The German, the only competition from another team to Hamilton’s world title could score points after a brilliant race by finishing 12th. Should Ferrari, and could Ferrari had decided to pit Vettel in the given window of opportunity, the German might have walked away with some points rather than empty handed.  

After a disappointment from one car retiring early on, Lotus was given a reason to celebrate, despite their internal financial woes when Romain Grosjean came across the finish line 3rd behind both the Mercedes cars for his first podium since the US Grand Prix in 2013. Daniil Kvyat came in 4th for Redbull, while Sergio Perez only finished 5th after a brilliant start to his race. Felippe Massa managed a commendable 6th after holding off Raikkonen in 7th. Max Verstappen lost a place on the final lap to the more experienced Finn to check-in in 8th place. Valterri Bottos in the 2nd Williams finished 9th after his penalty and Marcus Ericsson took the final point of the race with a 10th place finish for Sauber.

Felipe Nasr, Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button and, the two Manor Marussia cars of Will Stevens and Roberto Mehri were the final ones to finish the race in that order.

With Hamilton extending his Championship lead, the party now heads to Monza for the Italian Grand Prix from September 4-6.