Episode 86: 2023 Belgian Grand Prix Review

My review of yet another dominant Grand Prix victory for Max Verstappen + the rise of Oscar Piatri + the Alpine leadership reshuffle.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Hello, and welcome back to Fone every week. It has been a
long long time since I've last donethe podcast for various reasons which I won't
get into right now, but Ithought that it would be best to jump
right back in on the weekend ofone of my favorite races on the calendar,
Round twelve of the twenty twenty threeF one World Championships, the Belgian

(00:28):
Grand Prix at the circuit the SpaFrancorchamp. The Belgian Grand Prix has been
a happy hunting ground for the Bigfour of Mercedes, Red Bull, McLaren
and Ferrari in the past few decades, with Damon Hill's nineteen ninety eight victory
at Spa in the Jordan the lasttime Belgian has fallen to an outsider of

(00:52):
this group, and in this veinit was of course Max Verstappen last year,
who dominated the field despite starting atthe back of the grid due to
a penalty accrued for a new powerunit and having one twelve Grand Prix in
a row. As a constructor,I came into the weekend assuming that Belgium

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would be no more of a challengeto Red Bulls dominance than any other track
on the calendar has been thus far, so without further ado, let's review
this Grand Prix and get into episodeeighty six. Some huge news hit f

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one before any racing got underway onthis Sprint weekend, as rumblings from the
Alpine camp spilled over into a massexodus of the upper management, with otmar
Zafnaur team principal and Alan per Mainsporting director, both getting the boot,
with Pat Fry, former chief technicalofficer of the French outfit of to williams

(02:00):
Now. This major managerial shakeup followstwo consecutive double DNFs for the all French
lineup of Gazle and Ocon, leadingthe team to fall to sixth in the
Constructor's Championship, with McLaren enjoying twopodiums and two more top five finishes in

(02:21):
as many races. But we haveseen this all before at Alpine formerly known
as Reno, with the changing ofthe guard at the top spots almost a
yearly tradition for the team, withCyril Obatable announcing that he would exit as
team principal at the start of twentytwenty one, and then Marsin Berkowski tendering

(02:42):
his razorig nation with the squad inJanuary of last year, alongside a frustrated
Alam Prost. So it's clear withthree changes of the guard in three seasons
that nothing has really clicked for RenoAlpine CEO Lauren Rossi, who appears to
be using the formerly highly praised SAFFNAWas a bit of a scapegoat for Alpine's

(03:07):
recent struggles. With an average ofonly two points per race in the past
five I really don't see how mucha significant mid season change can go any
way to improving the performance of thecar in the short term, and even
when a new team principal and sportingdirector are selected, I would be really

(03:30):
surprised if they're given enough time tobring Alpine closer to their goal of fighting
for the championship in about four yearstime, as it is likely their head
will soon come down on the choppinglock as well like so many before them.
But on the subject of an attemptto boost Alpine's racing performance, the

(03:51):
team would introduce a new flaw designthis weekend in the hope of bridging the
gap to rivals McLaren and maybe evento fourth place Ferrari, who would greet
organizational restructuring this weekend, as wellas sporting director Lauren Mikey's left the Scuderia
to replace France, tossed at theend of the year at fellow Italian based

(04:12):
team Alpha Tari. In his placeis twenty three year Ferrari veteran Diego io
Verno. After a wet free practiceon Friday morning, the drivers had to
get ready for a somewhat damp qualifyingsession to set the grid for Sunday's race.
Now Leclair led the first session witha staff and only two tenths or

(04:33):
so behind, and Norris just aboutscraping through in fourteenth after running off the
gravel in a dicey moment early on. Now Alex Alboin was three tenths off
Q two, qualifying sixteenth for thesecond weekend, running accompanied in an early
exit by teammate Logan Sergeant and AlfieAlva, Romeo driver Joe Guanu Daniel Ricardo

(05:00):
on the precipice of another fantastic Qthree appearance as well, with a phenomenal
sixth place being put in as theflag came down, but a track limits
violation left him down in nineteenth place, his worst qualifying performance at SPA since
twenty thirteen now Danny Rick was alsojoined in the bottom five by Nico Hulkenberg,
who has been very proficient in qualifyingso far this season, but unfortunately

(05:27):
luck didn't swing his way with ahydraulics issue, meaning that he couldn't leave
the pits with enough time to begina final flying lap. Nico would start
from the pit lane anyway, takinga new power unit for this weekend.
Q two saw rookie Oscar piastri Gooquickest with a fine display from the young
Australian, whilst world champion Vastappen washardly in the picture with a tantalizing tenth

(05:55):
meaning he just about made it intothe final qualifying session. But that is
a very uncarried chacteristically close run thingfor the Red Bull driver. This was
a result which he blamed on thestrategy of not doing a double push lap
on warm tires, which led toquite a comical argument between himself and race

(06:15):
director and sorry race engineer Jumpierre Lambiassi. But in the drop zone by three
and a half tenths were Sonoda,who still had no Q three appearances to
name to his name in SPA,along with fourteenth place Botas also out with
two Alpines who were again inexcusably sufferingas of late, with fifteenth place,

(06:41):
ocon losing it at the No namedcorner and damaging his front wing in the
barriers. Kmag also had a reasonablytough Q two performance with thirteenth place following
a spin out of the aforementioned cornerof no name and a claim of impeding
lobbied against him by Charle Leclair,for which he would eventually take a three

(07:02):
place grid penalty. Was really astruggle for the hase today for the house
outfit. Now finally in Q three, it was Max Verstappen who took pole
position P one by a mind bogglingeight tenths of a second, a true
message following his dicey Q two,despite the fact that he will face a

(07:25):
five place grid penalty comes Sunday dueto the addition of a new gearbox.
Now lining up at the front ofthe grid on Sunday for the second time
this year was char Leclair, followinghis pole in Bacu Spy, the track
where Scharl took his first victory inthe sport back in twenty nineteen. Now

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next up is Sergio Perez, whowould start from the front row for the
first time since his pole position inSaudi Arabia this year, followed by the
four time Belgian Grand Prix winner LewisHamilton and Carlos Sites. This only the
second top five start at Spa forthe Spaniard. The two McLarens of Piastri

(08:11):
and Norris followed with p six forthe Aussie, a stellar result for him
and McLaren who once again breathed pastAston Martin, who was stuck looking out
the fifth row. Only the twoseparated by a perplexing George Russell, who
can only manage eighth despite having takensecond for his first podium in the wet

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in Spa only two years prior.This was a real disappointment for the brit
Now. Sprint shoot out on Saturdaymorning was another wet affair, leading to
a delay, but once it wasunder way, the times began to tumble.
In Sq one the step and topthe timings, whilst Sonoda was eliminated
by less than a tenth. Atthe other end, the two Alphas were

(08:58):
also out, alongside the two hassdrivers. Nico Holkenberg again not having luck
on his side, being unable toset competitive time due to being let out
of the pits late once more byHass. SQ two saw a drying track
with some drivers considering slicks. Oneof these was Lance Stroll, who looked

(09:20):
on for a solid lap before crashingout at turn nine, leaving himself and
teammate Alonso out due to the resultingred flag. The two Williams drivers and
the two fourteen Belgium Grand Prix winnerDaniel Ricardo were also out in the second
session. Finally onto Sq three,and although Maxivastappen once again secured the top

(09:46):
spot, it was far more ofa close run thing, with Oscar Piastri
beaten out by only eleven thousandths ofa second. The two Ferraris would lock
out the second row for the sprint, with the top four separated by only
two tenths. Norris and Ghastly followedon, with the Frenchman split from his
teammate ocon by Hamilton and Paris.Finally, George Russell once more disappointed in

(10:13):
qualifying, with only tenth unable toattain a proper flying lap in the final
stages. The sprint race was anothercurtailed aspect of this weekend, with only
eleven laps available due to a numberof formation laps to clear the significant amount
of water on the track. Itwas chaos in the first humans of the

(10:37):
race, with Pastry, Paris,Hamilton and Moore coming into the pits for
inters whilst lead of a Stappen andhalf of the rest of the field elected
to stay out. However, hequickly realized that this was an error and
came in at the end of thefirst lap of the sprint along with the

(10:58):
rest of the group the remainder ofthe grid, but not before seeding the
lead to Piastri, who is ona sensational run of form as of late.
Starting from six, Gasile's decision tobox meant that he came out in
the podium places, also benefiting ofthis decision to pit early ahead of Perez,

(11:20):
Hamilton and the two Ferraris, whoboth lost out in the pits being
held up by other drives. Butthere will be more woe this weekend for
Fernando Alonso, who spun out ofhis own accord at Poua, becoming beached
in the gravel. An uncharacteristic mistakefor the Spaniard. This brought out the

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safety car, bunching up the packand resulting in the staff and breezing past
Piastre on lap six down the CamelStreet, following the safety car coming in.
It also prompted an absolutely fantastic fightin the midfield, with Hamilton making
contact with Perez Stabelo, damaging theMexican sidepods and leading to Hamilton receiving a

(12:05):
five second time penalty for causing acollision. The brit would strike back at
Perez though at La Sauce with adaring move around the outside, sending Checo
into a free fall. Carlos Sciencewent down and around to Rouge before Pere's
also succumbed to Leclair at the endof the Chembil straight. Sergio's day would

(12:30):
then go from bad to worse ashe went off the road under pressure from
Norris rejoining in twelfth, and heelected to retire due to the earlier damage,
having clined from eleventh to eighth inthe initial skirmishes. It looked as
if Daniel Ricardo could take his firstpoint since leaving McLaren at the end of

(12:52):
last season, but George Russell hadother ideas, moving past the Aussie and
into P eight at La Sauce onthe panel lap of the Mini race,
so the Stappan was once more victorious, followed unusually by the rising star of
F one, Oscar Piastri and Max'sformer teammate at Rebel Alpine's Pa Gazley.

(13:15):
Picking up five points for Mercedes wasLewis Hamilton, followed by the two Ferrari
drivers and Lando Norris, with GeorgeRussell, as previously mentioned, taking the
final points position. Now for mydriver of the Sprint, and I think
this one is pretty clear cut.It's Oscar Piastrie, even though luck did

(13:39):
for his way with the decision toswitch it intos early on. Leading a
race as a phenomenal achievement regardless,and this is all thanks to his phenomenal
job during sprint qualifying, which hecertainly deserves as Rosa's four. The young
Australian is certainly on his way towardsgreat things and confident two performances such as

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this really prove it. He ishaving a fantastic and emphatic rookie season so
far, and in a similar veinMcLaren and my team of the Sprint taking
yet another double points finished away froma Grand prixreekend thanks to a P seven
from Norris, even though This maybe a little disappointing for the brit considering

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he started from fifth. We knowthat the McLaren's straight line speed is just
not there, so to even stayin the top eight in such a contested
midfield is a great success for theteam and finally for my struggle of the
sprint, there are no questions here. Once again it's unfortunately Checo Peris.
In my opinion, his collision waswith Hamilton was a racing incident, with

(14:48):
Lewis taking quite as tight a lineas he could and Sogio squeezing in somewhat
where he could have caught the frontof the curb in order to avoid the
collision. I mean, it's atricky one, but I'm pretty sure that
Hamilton was not entirely in the wrongas the as the race directors assumed.
But anyway, from here he felltremendously swiftly, falling behind both Ferraris in

(15:13):
quick succession before skinning off the roadwhilst in battle in a battle with Norris.
This really capping off a dreadful sprintrace for the Mexican, improving once
again that he provides little to nocompetition for teammate Max Vstappen, despite being

(15:33):
in similar machinery, now onto theGrand Prix, and it was of course
Max Vstappen who took his eighth GrandPrix victory in a row and his third
in a row at Spat From sixthon the grid, he managed to immediately
climb to fourth place at the jumpand managed to pounce on Lewis Hamilton for

(15:54):
third place at Lacomb on lap six, repeating his success on lap nine with
a daring pass on Leclair at theinitial hcase. The Dutchman elected to pit
from the lead of the race onthat fifteen, falling behind teammate Checo by
two seconds before making the move atturned seven for p one on the road

(16:15):
and it would be smooth sailing fromthere, with a pit stop on that
thirty capping off another uneventful day atthe office. In fact, the biggest
fight of his weekend was his racewith his race engineer jampierro Lambiassi, with
whom he argued about tire degradation asa result of pushing too hard and Max's
dessire to pit for some new rubberto go for faster's lap, jokingly giving

(16:41):
pit stop practice as a reason forthis attempt, Max is truly a titan
of the sport, and Red Bullseemed unstoppable to the extent that victory never
seems to even be in contention forany of the other teams. The only
chance of silverware for the entire restof the field often seems to be the
third podium place, depending on Checho'sstrength on that weekend. Not only is

(17:07):
this frustrating more established fans, whorecall that there being at least some competition
to Lewis Hamilton from outside of Mercedes, namely Sebastian Vessel during the Turbo Hybrid
era glory days of the Silver Hours, but this dominance is also resulting in
a slow decline of the newer Americanaudience, whose three key sports of baseball,

(17:30):
football, and basketball see far morecompetition as opposed to dominant streaks in
their modern eras. For example,in the last nine seasons of baseball,
eight different franchises have been victorious atthe World Series, in the last twelve
NFL seasons, nine different franchises havebeen victorious, and in the last eleven
seasons of the NBA, eight differentfranchises have been victorious. In formula one,

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one would have to look back tonineteen seventy eight to find nine different
Rent Constructors Championships, this ninth beingLotus. I know that dominance of eras
has always been a part of FormulaOne, but without any competition, sport
is just no longer special if thesame driver takes victory every weekend by mind

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boggling margins. But now moving onto Max's Red Bull teammate Peris, who
ended up in second place over twentytwo seconds adrift. Initially things were looking
promising as he blasted past char Leclaireinto the lead of the race at the
end of the kemil straight. However, after pitting on lap thirteen, he

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fell to the might of Max andcruised to another podium finish, his p
two being the second his second ina row at SPA. In the final
SPA podium spot was Charles Leclaire,who would take his third of the season.
Charle followed a very similar race strategyto Checko, pitting on lap thirteen

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and again on lap twenty eight tocover off an undercut attempt from fourth place
driver Lewis Hamilton. The brit hadpitted a lap before shot, complaining about
graining on the soft compound and seeminglyeyeing up a move on the Claire as
the race drue to a close.However, with a two second gap with
two laps to go, Hamilton electedto pit in order to steal the fastest

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lap from the Staban on the finalon the final turn of the race,
denying us a possibly tantalizing closing fightbetween the Monogasque and Hamilton's p four from
Lewis is the first time the Mercedesdriver has been seen the checkered flag outside
of the podium places in Belgium sincehis first season of the sport in two

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thousand and seven, where he wasalso fourth. Fernando Alonso secure his first
top five finish since Austria, climbingfrom ninth place on the grid in the
early stages and moving into fifth onlap four. He had to fight past
a resilient Nico Hulkenberg following his earlypit stop at lap eleven, coming out

(20:17):
ahead of the German before being repassed, but finally making the move work a
lap later. He continued on hischarge, breathing past Ghasle and Russell,
perfectly extending his second stint and comingonto softs as the race drew to a
close, despite Lance Stroll making ita double points finish for the Silverstone outfit

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in ninth ten sprint race points plusLando Norris's seventh place means McLaren will walk
away from this weekend with a heftierhaul of points than Aston for the third
week running, and it was avery hard fought p seven at that with
the brit initially tumbling down the order, being passed by Albon down the Kemel

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Street and by Stroll and Russell onlap five, suffering a slow stop very
early on only on lap six,and being overtaken by former teammate Ricardo down
out of the point's positions on lapten, a position he was in due
to an excess of time in thepits, and it was only twelve laps

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after his first stop that he saidthat he needed to come in for a
second time, once again onto themedium tire, despite the threat of rain
lingering over the circuit. Despite thisseeming a risky move from McLaren at the
time, it turned out to bea master stroke in a similar manner to
Launce Stroll, who also completed histwo stops earlier than most. Lando perfectly

(21:45):
extended his stint on the mediums,undercutting half of the field when they were
called into the pits ten to fifteenlaps after Norris. Now, this period
gave Lando the time to catch upto the midpack of DRS Train, and
by the time the race was over, none of the midfield had caught up
to him, apart from George Russell, who made the one stop work,

(22:10):
coming onto softs on lap twenty fourand powering through the low end of the
points paying positions in the closing stages, ending up seven seconds of the top
five. However, in contrast tothe vastly different but equally impressive successes of
Russell and the miraculous recovery of Norris, Carlos Science and Oscar Piastri worked far

(22:33):
less lucky. The two came togetherat La Source on the first lap,
with Sights barging the Aussie into theinside wall, causing suspension damage and ending
his day before it had already begun, really denying us of what could have
been a phenomenal midfield fight. TheSpaniard would be forced to pay his penance,

(22:57):
however, falling to da Albon,Stroll, Russell and Sergeant within the
opening laps with his race engineer,reporting a five percent loss in aero from
the turn one incident. After pittingearly, Science could not make it back
near the points, deciding to retireon lap twenty three, the first time

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he has been forced to pull outof a Grand Prix all season. Esteban
Ochon also managed a strong points finishof eighth despite an unpromising quality of P
twelve. The Frenchman pitted for mediumsearly on, holding firm within the dr
restrain and securing a Parson magnism.He boxed for the second time on lap

(23:41):
twenty six, passing Sonoda brilliantly forninth at Lacomb and doing the same to
Stroll as the race drew to aclose, making a strong response to the
crushing July for Alpine with a coupleof points. The final point spot was
filled once again by Sonoda, whoreasserted himself as top driver at Alpha Tari

(24:03):
following Daniel Ricardo's return, with histhird points finish of the season, still
a far cry from where Yuki needsto be and where Alpha Towery needs to
be, but an improvement on hissubmission to Pierre Gazley last season. Gasly
and the two Alpha Romeos followed theAlpine driver, finishing outside of the points

(24:26):
at Spa for the first time inhis career, and Alex Album was fourteenth,
having floated in and around the pointsrace, but succumbing to tired egg
and abandoning his favored one stop asthe day came to a close. Finally,
the two Hats drivers Sergeant and Ricardowere the backmarkers as the Belgian Grand

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Prix concluded. Now from my driverof the race and it is without a
doubt landing Norris as was predicted beforethe Grand Prix, the McLaren nearly struggled
in the dry racing conditions, leadingto the brit leading the brit to free
fall to the bottom of the packin the first half of the race.
However, a genius strategy call combinedwith Lando's insatiable will meant that six vital

(25:17):
points were salvaged for the constructor's fight, going some way to take up the
slack for Piastre's unfortunate retirement. Nowfor the team of the race, and
it's of course Red Bull. Notonly did we see a dominant charge to
the helm of the field from MaxVerstappen for the opening In the opening fifteen
laps, but Checo also expertly consolidatedhis lead over Leclair, providing a large

(25:41):
enough gap to leave the money gasquevulnerable for Max behind him, and begrudgingly
stepping aside when the Dutchmen came knockingat his door. An assured result for
the team as always. Finally formy struggle of the day, and it

(26:03):
was Joe Guanu in thirteenth place.You know, thirteenth place may seem like
a somewhat positive result considering the factthat he started p seventeen, But the
Chinese driver just could not get anywheretoday, despite making confidence start ending up

(26:23):
in the points positions in the firstafter the first few rounds of pitch stops,
he pushed way too hard on thesecond stint while so many around him
managed to perfectly break into their mediumcompound tires, and he ended up pitting
reasonably early for a second stop asthe deg grew too high and he began

(26:48):
to rapidly lose places. What couldhave been another few points to add to
his tally of four on the seasonended up long gone and he was over
fifteen seconds of P ten by thecheckered flag. Congratulations to Max Verstappen on
yet another strong victory, and tunein next week for some more F one

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news and updates.