After Race 12: Belgium

The inevitable finally happened. The two Mercedes finally collided with one another in Spa-Francorchamps as Nico Rosberg ran into the back of Lewis Hamilton at Les Combes. What happened next was rather extraordinary as allegations of Rosberg purposely hitting Hamilton ‘to prove a point’ came to light. Toto Wolff could barely speak after the race, such was his fury, while Niki Lauda was scathing towards Rosberg.

The cardinal sin in Formula 1: DO NOT CRASH INTO YOUR TEAM-MATE.

Source: Getty Images

How Mercedes approach the final seven races will be fascinating. Next up will be the first lap at Monza – with its two chicanes to start the lap – and with the strong possibility of another Merc front-row lockout, things could spill over once again…

Moving on, there were 20 other drivers in action on Sunday (and a couple more over the weekend), so let’s get cracking. 

Renault winning at Spa in 2014?!
Source: Red Bull Racing (Facebook)

1. Daniel Ricciardo (no change)

Three wins in six races! When Ricciardo signed for the senior team last year, such a possibility might not have been out of the question. But such was the dominance of Mercedes coupled with Renault’s underpowered and unreliable unit, that prospect seemed almost impossible in Melbourne. Yet, here we are, Red Bull somehow won at Monza and Ricciardo is thrashing his quadruple-champion team-mate.

Ricciardo and Bottas prove they can handle the champers
Source: Red Bull Racing (Facebook)

=2. Valtteri Bottas, Daniil Kvyat (both up three spots) & Jules Bianchi (up two spots)

Despite trying all sorts of combinations to separate this trio, it proved to be too unfair to split them. Bottas must be questioning his team’s strategy approach. Quickest man in FP3, he could only muster P6 in the wet quali session. Things looked promising in the early stages on Sunday as the Mercs ruined their own race and Bottas stormed past Alonso. A Mercedes-powered car against the two Red Bull Renaults, how did Williams not convert that into a win? Nonetheless, it was another impressive performance from F1’s latest Flying Finn – and he’ll be optimistic of topping the podium in Monza.

Kvyat, fresh off the news that he’ll be Toro Rosso team leader next year as 17-year-old Max Verstappen joins the party, managed to both out-qualify and out-race Jean-Éric Vergne en route to a couple of points on his first visit to Spa in an F1 car. Bianchi once again made it into Q2 before a first-corner puncture relegated him to a practice session.

=5. Lewis Hamilton & Nico Rosberg (down three spots)

As with the above trio, it’s proved difficult splitting the Merc team-mates – but for different reasons. Rosberg ultimately has a healthy championship lead of 29 points but at what cost did it come? He faced the wrath of both his team and the fans, and will likely continue to get booed through the remaining races. Hamilton originally made the mistake in quali. He lost out on pole position but made up for it in the very short run down to turn 1. Sebastian Vettel almost pulled the same move on Hamilton as he did last year but correctly chose to cut across Les Combes when it was clear the move wasn’t on… why didn’t Rosberg do the same? The two drivers remain free to race but this is now a full-on ugly battle. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing for Formula 1.

On a side note, Rosberg showed exceptional car control not to crash his Mercedes when he picked up some of Hamilton’s tyre carcass in a spectacularly ironic occurrence.

Hamilton was one of several members in the F1 paddock to take the ALS ice bucket challenge
Source: F1 Fanatic

7. Sebastian Vettel & 8. Fernando Alonso (swapped places)

Both world champions put in stunning performances on Saturday to lock out the second row of the grid (Vettel especially after missing FP2) before it unravelled somewhat on raceday. Alonso’s mechanics saved him from starting at the back of the grid and accepted what was a rather generous five-second penalty while Vettel lost his chance of victory after running wide at Pouhon. That said, he was soundly beaten by his Aussie team-mate although his last couple of laps were like those of Nick Heidfeld in 2008 as he stormed through the Alonso/McLarens mess to take P5. Alonso ran into the back of Vettel to finish off his underwhelming afternoon.

Vettel showing Rosberg how to bail out of a move into Les Combes...
Source: F1 Fanatic

=9. Jenson Button (up one spot) & Kevin Magnussen (up two spots)

Up until lap 42, it was a super weekend for Kevin Magnussen. He outqualified his team-mate and ran ahead of him for the majority of the race before losing his sixth-place finish after the race for blocking Alonso. The penalty was correctly awarded, he drove across the Spaniard on the Kemmel straight which is unacceptable but, until then, he had shown excellent defensive skills to keep a trio of world champions of bay. He certainly ruffled JB’s feathers and the Englishman will be slyly happy at K-Mag’s penalty as it widens the gap between them in the championship to a rather flattening degree.

11. Nico Hülkenberg (down two spots)

The Hulk made a shock exit in Q1 but rebounded magnificently in the opening couple of laps to make his way to P12. Unfortunately for him, the rate of progress pretty much ended there as he stagnated in the midfield. Lucked into a point thanks to Magnussen’s penalty, having been unable to get past Kvyat.

12. Kimi Räikkönen (up three spots)

Could this be the ‘eureka’ moment for Kimi? The Spa specialist finally beat Alonso on Sunday afternoon and ran strongly throughout the race.

Kimi enjoyed his best race of 2014
Source: Scuderia Ferrari (Facebook)

13. Sergio Pérez (up three spots)

A rather quiet weekend for Checo but he managed to out-qualify and out-race The Hulk. The gap between them after 44 laps probably flatters the German but a solid weekend nonetheless. FI will have expected more with their Mercedes power unit.

14. Jean-Éric Vergne (down two spots)

Bad weekend for JEV. An exhaust problem put him on the back foot in Q2 and he was edged out by Kvyat on row six but a poor first lap saw him mired back in traffic and he wasn’t able to recover. Couldn’t have happened at a worse time for Vergne, following the announcement he will be dropped for Verstappen next season. It’s not a surprise that he’s been let go by STR – he’s had three full seasons already and is almost a victim of the programme’s success (as with Jaime Alguersuari and Sébastien Buemi). He’s not ‘damaged goods’ and will hopefully be on the grid next year… but it seems somewhat unlikely, unfortunately.

15. André Lotterer (new entry)

It was almost the dream weekend for the three-time (and current) Le Mans winner. He rocked up to Spa and promptly thrashed his team-mate in quali before having what could be one of the shortest careers in F1 history (amongst those drivers who actually qualified for a race). A rather heartbreaking end to the fairytale, although he might be back for Japan.

Lotterer led the backmarker battle before his early DNF
Source: Caterham

16. Felipe Massa (down three spots)

Massa’s race was dictated by picking up the debris from Hamilton’s tyre which cost him about 40 seconds in the first half of the race. He was very quick after the team removed the debris after his second stop but the damage was done. Again outshone by Bottas.

17. Romain Grosjean (down three spots)

Another weekend to forget for Lotus. Grosjean dropped out in Q2 and then needed a front wing change after contact with Bianchi on the opening lap. He ran anonymously near the tail of the field before an early DNF.

18. Kamui Kobayashi (no change)

No change for KK this week despite not racing. Speaks volumes about those below him…

=19. Esteban Gutiérrez & Adrian Sutil (in the bottom four last week)

As you were, nothing to see here…

=21. Pastor Maldonado (down four spots), Marcus Ericsson & Max Chilton (in the bottom four last week)

It’s as if these guys were desperately trying to be bottom of this week’s F1 Power Rankings… Chilton started the weekend by voluntarily giving up his seat to Alexander Rossi. However, during FP1, his loan from Wonga evidently came through and he was back in the car for FP2 – all very awkward. Interestingly, Chilton did say, “all will be revealed at some point” – which is unerringly similar to what Vincent Tan said in the recent Cardiff/Premier League scandal.

Ericsson was outqualified by a man who hadn’t turned a wheel in an F1 car in over a decade by over a second. His F1 career is toast.

Maldonado drove off the track in free practice. He just wasn’t paying attention. It was every bit as stupid as it sounds.

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