2013 Belgium GP Preview - The battle is on!

After the long one month summer break, F1′s back in business this week at the amazing Spa Francorchamps circuit. The 7.0 km long circuit which boasts 19 corners and long straights is one of the drivers’ favourite, with many calling it the best track in the world. The circuit is famous for housing Eau Rouge – a steep uphill left-right corner with a blind final section.

Last year, Jenson Button dominated the race from pole position after a first corner crash caused by Romain Grosjean eliminated championship rivals Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. Throughout the race weekend, it was found that the engineers were busy deciding whether to go for a comparatively high downforce setup or a lower downforce one.

Ultimately, the lower downforce one proved more successful and that was evident from Button’s supreme performance. His teammate Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile, went for a high downforce setup which left him 7th on the grid. Hamilton, following his poor performance in qualifying, posted confidential telemetry of Button’s car on Twitter, only to delete it a few hours later.

As far as this year’s race is concerned, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton will be looking to minimise Vettel’s lead as much as they can. Vettel has been extremely consistent this year, driving like a three-time world champion and not making any major mistakes. His four wins mean that he proudly stands on top of the championship with 172 points, 38 points clear of his nearest rival Kimi Raikkonen. His other two main rivals, from two different teams, namely Ferrari and Mercedes, are 39 and 48 points behind respectively.

These three contenders are in totally different situations, but their goals are the same – score as many points in next two races before F1 heads to the final flyaway races where Vettel and Red Bull have been the dominant force for past few years.

Kimi Raikkonen has scored points in each and every race of the season and took a sensational victory at the very first race of the season in Australia. But as he himself admits, he needs to win more races if he is to take his second title. While Lotus has shown the race pace to win in the last two races, they didn’t quite get the whole weekend right in either of them.

Their major problem, as we all know, is their poor one lap pace. Raikkonen’s average grid slot of 6.4 means that he’s left with too much work to do in the races. But with four victories under his bag at the circuit, he should be fairly confident of another strong race at Spa.

Fernando Alonso’s chances of scoring his first win at Belgium look rather bleak. Despite starting the year with a strong car, Ferrari lost out on the in-season development race as their new parts failed to deliver, forcing them to revert to previous designs. To make matters worse, the Ferrari F138 seems to struggle on new Pirelli tyres. In all, Alonso’s chances of a strong result at Spa aren’t high.

Lewis Hamilton seems to be the man on form at the moment after his fantastic victory at Hungary from pole position. The fact that Mercedes looked so strong on race pace that weekend, despite track temperatures of over 50C, suggest that the German outfit might have just got over their tyre troubles.

However, Spa-Francorchamps circuit pose a new kind of challenge for the W04. The circuit’s long corners put a lot of lateral force on tyres and it would be interesting to see whether Mercedes can manage this type of load or not. Nevertheless, the British driver would be looking for his second win at Spa in order to decrease the mammoth 48 point gap to Vettel in the championship.

Sebastian Vettel has been the man of the season. Yes, he was involved in the infamous multi-21 incident that saw him lose a lot of fans that he made over the past few years. But he’s been super consistent and showed his intention of winning at any cost, not necessarily in the right way. Spa is not a Red Bull favourite, though Vettel did win here in 2011.

Other Contenders

Force India is one team which has a strong history at Spa. It is at this circuit where the team scored it’s first point in the form of a podium finish, and it was at this place where Jordan (now Force India) scored it’s first victory in form of a one-two finish. However, one thing that can prevent Force India from a strong result, let alone a podium finish, is tyres.

Force India, along with Lotus and Ferrari, specialised in the Pirelli tyres. The team further showed amazing consistency – scoring points seven times in first eight races of the season. But a mid-season change of tyres seem to have put them on the backfoot and the team needs to do a lot of work – both on and off the track to get on top of the tyres.

McLaren and Jenson Button would be hoping for a strong finish this season. As mentioned earlier, Button dominated the proceedings at Belgium last year and he would like to further make the most of the progress made by McLaren in last few races.

So who do you think can win the Belgian Grand Prix? Can Hamilton be on top of the podium and prove that he’s realistically the only one that can challenge Vettel for the title, or is there more to come from Alonso and Raikkonen?