Belgium GP at Spa

[DooberRoni]

FIA Formula One
Belgium Grand Prix
Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk279/DooberRoni/Belgium---800x600.jpg

http://i282.photobucket.com/albums/kk279/DooberRoni/spaCircuit2.jpg

http://i57.photobucket.com/albums/g223/EKron/STVlogo.jpg (http://www.speedtv.com/)

EASTERN TIME ZONE
FRI - September 5
8:00am - 9:40am - Practice 2 (LIVE)

SAT - September 6
12:00am - 1:00am - F1 Debrief / Europe (only showing)
1:00am - 1:30am - Inside Grand Prix
1:30am - 3:10am - Practice 2 (2nd/final showing)
8:00am - 9:30am - Qualifying (LIVE Time-delay) (only showing)
9:30am - 10:00am - Inside Grand Prix (2nd showing)

SUN - September 7
7:30pm - 8:00am - F1 Race Preview (LIVE)
8:00am - 10:00am - F1 Race (LIVE)

PACIFIC TIME ZONE
FRI - September 5
5:00am - 6:40am - Practice 2 (LIVE)
9:00pm - 10:00pm - F1 Debrief / Europe (only showing)
10:00pm - 10:30pm - Inside Grand Prix
10:30pm - 12:10am - Practice 2 (2nd/final showing)

SAT - September 6
5:00am - 6:30am - Qualifying (LIVE Time-delay) (only showing)
6:30am - 7:00am - Inside Grand Prix (2nd showing)

SUN - September 7
4:30am - 5:00am - F1 Race Preview (LIVE)
5:00am - 7:00am - F1 Race (LIVE)


Come join us for live posting on Saturday & Sunday for qually & race.


Schedule info courtesy of (clicks)
http://www.dooberville.com/forums/picture.php?albumid=6&pictureid=52 (http://www.racefantv.com/USTV.htm)

[Gary]

I didn't realize F1 still raced at Spa - what a great track! I've been around the road sections in a car a couple of times (and down the main straight on the bus long ago).

[LittleAlguy]

I *heart* Spa. :D

[ÜberDoober]

I didn't realize F1 still raced at Spa - what a great track! I've been around the road sections in a car a couple of times (and down the main straight on the bus long ago).

That's cool! Spa was off the calendar for a spell but is back in the schedule. It is so historic, I can't imagine them not racing there. What track has more famous corners in the world? Eau Rouge, Rivage, Pouhon, Stavelot. I can't wait to get up at 5:00 on Saturday for qualifying and 4:30 on Sunday. Heck, that's been my MotoGP schedule so why not?

To make things interesting, it looks like weather might be a factor?

If Wednesday’s evidence was any indication, the 2008 edition of the Belgian Grand Prix could be a wet and wild affair.

It rained heavily only all day at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit as teams, personnel and reporters set up at the venue in the Ardennes. Parking lots were soaked and puddles saturated the paddock, and local reports indicate that more rain could be on the way, with a more than 50 percent chance for Thursday through to Sunday.

Source Article (http://formula-one.speedtv.com/article/setting-the-stage-belgian-grand-prix/)

[ÜberDoober]

Friday practice is in the books. I actually managed to watch most of the second session that was mixed wet/dry. Raikkonen backed into a barrier and ripped the wing off his car and Fisichella spun in the same spot and tore his car up pretty good.

Practice 1
Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Massa Ferrari (B) 1:47.284 26
2. Raikkonen Ferrari (B) 1:47.623 + 0.339 26
3. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:47.878 + 0.594 27
4. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:47.932 + 0.648 24
5. Alonso Renault (B) 1:48.104 + 0.820 26
6. Webber Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:48.428 + 1.144 29
7. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 1:48.557 + 1.273 31
8. Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 1:48.958 + 1.674 24
9. Glock Toyota (B) 1:48.997 + 1.713 26
10. Piquet Renault (B) 1:49.068 + 1.784 25
11. Kubica BMW Sauber (B) 1:49.139 + 1.855 25
12. Heidfeld BMW Sauber (B) 1:49.185 + 1.901 26
13. Rosberg Williams-Toyota (B) 1:49.611 + 2.327 30
14. Trulli Toyota (B) 1:49.625 + 2.341 14
15. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:49.849 + 2.565 18
16. Fisichella Force India-Ferrari (B) 1:49.986 + 2.702 27
17. Sutil Force India-Ferrari (B) 1:50.117 + 2.833 19
18. Nakajima Williams-Toyota (B) 1:50.125 + 2.841 30
19. Button Honda (B) 1:50.464 + 3.180 25
20. Barrichello Honda (B) 1:50.905 + 3.621 25

Practice 2
Pos Driver Team Time Laps
1. Alonso Renault (B) 1:48.454 21
2. Massa Ferrari (B) 1:48.504 + 0.050 15
3. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:48.740 + 0.286 19
4. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes (B) 1:48.805 + 0.351 17
5. Raikkonen Ferrari (B) 1:49.328 + 0.874 10
6. Rosberg Williams-Toyota (B) 1:49.405 + 0.951 17
7. Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 1:49.427 + 0.973 28
8. Sutil Force India-Ferrari (B) 1:49.585 + 1.131 22
9. Trulli Toyota (B) 1:49.715 + 1.261 22
10. Heidfeld BMW Sauber (B) 1:49.725 + 1.271 21
11. Kubica BMW Sauber (B) 1:49.875 + 1.421 22
12. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:49.922 + 1.468 20
13. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 1:49.948 + 1.494 20
14. Glock Toyota (B) 1:50.281 + 1.827 23
15. Nakajima Williams-Toyota (B) 1:50.364 + 1.910 20
16. Fisichella Force India-Ferrari (B) 1:50.740 + 2.286 11
17. Button Honda (B) 1:50.925 + 2.471 18
18. Barrichello Honda (B) 1:51.238 + 2.784 22
19. Piquet Renault (B) 1:51.334 + 2.880 18
20. Webber Red Bull-Renault (B) 1:51.640 + 3.186 7

[ÜberDoober]

It's a grey and gloomy day in Spa but dry. It's pitch black in the morning here but what matters is that Q1 has just begun! :) So is it Massa's turn to kablammo?

Q1
Bourdais 1:46:777 wtf?
Kovalainen 1:46:812
Massa
Hamilton

Knocked out
Sutil
Fisichella
Barrichello
Button
Nakajima

[ÜberDoober]

Q2 finishes without incident

Kovalainen 1:46:037
Hamilton
Raikkonen
Heidfeld

Done knocked out
Trulli
Piquet
Glock
Coulthard
Rosberg

Bourdais makes it to Q3! Toyota's are not running the best but certainly better than the Hondas.

[ÜberDoober]

Oh that last lap of Q3 makes getting up at 5:00am worth it. It's McLaren/Ferrari, McLaren Ferrari on the front two rows. It stayed dry throughout qualifying but who knows what will happen tomorrow? :)

Hamilton 1:47:338
Massa
Kovalainen
Raikkonen
Heidfeld
Alonso
Webber
Kubica
Bourdais
Vettel
Trulli
Piquet
Glock
Coulthard
Rosberg
Barrichello
Button
Sutil
Nakajima
Fisichella

[LittleAlguy]

Oh wow, that was about as ugly a start you can get without a '98 style pile-up.

[ÜberDoober]

Up with the cows and ready to go. Who the hell am I kidding, cows doen't get up this early.

Track has wet parts but it is not raining. They're on their warmup lap. I'm holding my breath....

Not a pretty start but Hambone holds on for the holeshot. Kimi second, Massa third. Holy crap!

Kimi makes a move to the front! :ack2:

[LittleAlguy]

What a move by Raikkonen.

[LittleAlguy]

Careful, SeaBass.

[LittleAlguy]

A pass on the outside at Blanchimont. Granted, it's safer to go around these days but jeez.

[LittleAlguy]

Grr, I can't get T&S to work for me. :mad:

[ÜberDoober]

Kimi is starting to widen the gap a bit. Kovalainen looking fast after getting a bad start. Can't believe Bourdais is running 5th with damage.

[LittleAlguy]

Hamilton with a pretty early stop.

Oh Kovi.

[ÜberDoober]

Hamilton in early and made a short stop. Rejoins in 7th place.

Kovalainen spins Webber and gets a drive thru for it.

[ÜberDoober]

Piquet's day is done. Weird how they did Kovi's pit stop then drive-thru.

[LittleAlguy]

This is why you don't doubt Kimi.

I hope Bourdais can get an F1 seat next year. If not, hopefully an ALMS/LMS team picks him up or perhaps even an IndyCar team.

[ÜberDoober]

Nearly half way already. Seems like it's going fast.

Bring on a good rainshower!

[LittleAlguy]

I'm surprised they haven't had one of those FIA weather forecasts yet.

[ÜberDoober]

I'm surprised they haven't had one of those FIA weather forecasts yet.

Spoke too soon, eh? :) :)

[LittleAlguy]

Hah, there it is. Of course, the rain will either come in two minutes or 6 hours given history of the forecasts.

[LittleAlguy]

Oh wow, it's getting pretty nip and tuck.

[ÜberDoober]

OMG!! :ack2:

Crazy!

[ÜberDoober]

That was awesome! Can Hambone make it around one last time?

[LittleAlguy]

Oh my goodness. What a crazy last two laps.

[ÜberDoober]

Seabass was denied a podium. That's too bad.

Wow! What a race!

[LittleAlguy]

Kimi went from closing to within 11 of Lewis to being 23 back.

Yeah, Heidfeld definitely needed one more lap to get them. Would have been a crazy first win if that happened.

Good run for Vettel.

[LittleAlguy]

http://www.formula1.com/news/headlines/2008/9/8334.html

Massa given win upon further review. Heidfeld 2nd, Hamilton 3rd. McLaren will appeal.

[Gary]

I turned that on with about 5 laps to go - pretty, uh, eventful, lol.

[ÜberDoober]

This whole penalty thing for Hamilton is crap. As far as I'm concerned, he did what he was supposed to do.

Yeah, maybe LuHam was in a dumb spot when Kimi forced him off but he did lift, lose momentum and let Raikkonen get completely ahead of him. The point seems to be that Hamilton was too close and was able to catch a tow into the next corner but he's where he would have been if he hadn't cut the chicane. Nobody even mentions Raikkonen hitting Hamilton mid-corner.

The FIA's decision to impose a 25-second penalty after the race, podium celebration and interviews reeks of pure crap. Give him a 10 spot grid penalty at Monza or a drive through at Monza but don't take his win away. The race was decided on the track and didn't need any intervention from above to make it right. I suppose the Tifosi thought otherwise but from someone (me) that tries to be somewhat objective, this otherwise very exciting race has been tarnished by the FIA's decision.

[ÜberDoober]

Story from crash.net quoting Niki Lauda as saying this "is the worst judgement in the history of the FIA".

The 25-second penalty that robbed McLaren-Mercedes star Lewis Hamilton of victory in the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps at the weekend has been slammed as ‘perverted' and ‘the worst judgement in the history of F1' – by a former Ferrari world champion.

Hamilton expertly won the race held around the challenging Ardennes circuit – widely acknowledged as the greatest test of a driver's true level of skill the world over – after getting the better of Ferrari rival Kimi Raikkonen in a thrilling late-race scrap on a track rendered ever-more treacherous by the onset of rain whilst both men were still out on slick tyres.

Though it was the Briton who ultimately prevailed – taking the lead shortly before Raikkonen spun into the wall barely two laps from the chequered flag – he was subsequently handed a retrospective 25-second ‘drive-through' penalty. That came after FIA stewards deemed Hamilton had gained an advantage by cutting the Bus-Stop chicane as the duo battled wheel-to-wheel through the last corner, consequently dropping him down to third place in the final reckoning and gifting victory to chief title rival Felipe Massa.

The punishment has come in for heavy attack from all quarters, with Hamilton vigorously protesting his innocence and British newspaper the Daily Mail exclaiming ‘Just when you thought F1 couldn't get any more ridiculous' and suggesting the 23-year-old is the ‘victim of a conspiracy against McLaren', with the governing body presiding over a ‘polluted sport'.

‘Instead of celebrating one of the greatest duels of recent times, revelling in true genius by Raikkonen and Hamilton and lauding a remarkable win, that same old stench emanated from Formula 1,' the report read.
“This is the worst judgment in the history of F1,” blasted triple F1 World Champion Niki Lauda, a man who clinched two of his three drivers' crowns with Ferrari, and the other with McLaren almost a decade later. “[It is] the most perverted judgment I have ever seen.

“It's absolutely unacceptable when three functionaries (the stewards) influence the championship like this.”

source article (http://www.crash.net/motorsport/f1/news/168721-0/lewis_penalty_most_perverted_ruling_in_f1.html)

Check out our F1 homepage for all the headlines regarding this dirty little affair. http://www.dooberville.com/formula1.htm

[LittleAlguy]

This whole penalty thing for Hamilton is crap. As far as I'm concerned, he did what he was supposed to do.

Yeah, maybe LuHam was in a dumb spot when Kimi forced him off but he did lift, lose momentum and let Raikkonen get completely ahead of him. The point seems to be that Hamilton was too close and was able to catch a tow into the next corner but he's where he would have been if he hadn't cut the chicane. Nobody even mentions Raikkonen hitting Hamilton mid-corner.

The FIA's decision to impose a 25-second penalty after the race, podium celebration and interviews reeks of pure crap. Give him a 10 spot grid penalty at Monza or a drive through at Monza but don't take his win away. The race was decided on the track and didn't need any intervention from above to make it right. I suppose the Tifosi thought otherwise but from someone (me) that tries to be somewhat objective, this otherwise very exciting race has been tarnished by the FIA's decision.

The only thing I can come up with was that earlier in the year, he got called for shortcutting the course at Magny Cours. Perhaps they gave him the time penalty for being a repeat offender.

That said, I don't know what else Hamilton could have done once he put himself there. If he tries to brake or stay right alongside Kimi, he might have taken both of them out and then what?