2014 Belgian Grand Prix

  2014 Belgian Grand Prix

Race details[1][2]
Race 12 of 19 in the 2014 Formula One season
Layout of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit
Date	24 August 2014
Official name	2014 Formula 1 Shell Belgian Grand Prix
Location	Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps Stavelot, Belgium
Course	Permanent racing facility
Course length	7.004 km (4.352 mi)
Distance	44 laps, 308.052 km (191.415 mi)
Weather	Mostly cloudy with maximum temperatures reaching 16 degrees during the day.
Attendance	80,000
Pole position
Driver	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
Time	2:05.591
Fastest lap
Driver	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
Time	1:50.511 on lap 36
Podium
First	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault
Second	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes
Third	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes
Lap leaders

The 2014 Belgian Grand Prix (formally the 2014 Formula 1 Shell Belgian Grand Prix)^[1] was a Formula One motor race held on 24 August 2014 at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Spa, Belgium.^[2] It was the twelfth round of the 2014 Formula One season, and the 70th Belgian Grand Prix. The 44-lap race was won by Daniel Ricciardo for the Red Bull team, after starting from fifth position. Nico Rosberg finished second in a Mercedes, with Valtteri Bottas third for the Williams team.

The victory was Ricciardo's second consecutive win; he started from fourth on the grid to win the Hungarian Grand Prix four weeks prior. Rosberg's second place increased his gap to Hamilton in the Drivers' Championship to 29 points. Mercedes established an 157-point lead over Red Bull team in the Constructors' Championship, with seven races of the season remaining.^[3]

Report

Background

The Grand Prix was contested by eleven teams, each of two drivers. The teams, also known as constructors, were Red Bull, Mercedes, Ferrari, Lotus, McLaren, Force India, Sauber, Toro Rosso, Williams, Marussia and Caterham. Tyre supplier Pirelli brought four different tyre compounds for the race; two dry compounds, the medium "primes" and the soft "options" and two wet-weather compounds, the intermediate and full wet. The drag reduction system (DRS) had two activation zones for the race; one was on the start/finish straight from the final to first corners, and the second on the straight between turns four and five.^[4]

Going into the race, Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg led the Drivers' Championship with 202 points, ahead of team-mate Lewis Hamilton with 191 points and Daniel Ricciardo with 131. Fernando Alonso was fourth with 115 points while Valtteri Bottas was fifth with 95 points.^[4] In the Constructors' Championship, Mercedes were leading with 393 points and Red Bull were second with 219 points. Ferrari with 142 points and Williams with 135 points contended for third place, with Force India fifth with 98 points.^[4] Mercedes had so far dominated the championship, winning nine out of the eleven previous races, with Ricciardo winning the Canadian and Hungarian Grands Prix. Kevin Magnussen, Bottas and Alonso had each gained second-place finishes, and Vettel, Jenson Button and Sergio Pérez had achieved third place podium finishes.^[4]

There were two driver changes heading into the race. Having been in one of the two Caterham cars since the first race of the season in Australia, Kamui Kobayashi was replaced by three-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner André Lotterer.^[5] The second driver change was Alexander Rossi who was drafted into Marussia to replace Max Chilton. Chilton had part of the team since the first round and was sidelined for Belgium, as a result of "contractual issues".^[6] Marussia later announced on 22 August that Chilton's race seat was reinstated, and Rossi only took part in the event's first practice session.^[7]

Practice and qualifying

Three practice sessions were held before the race; two 90 minute sessions on Friday and one lasting an hour on Saturday.^[8] Rosberg was the fastest driver in the first practice session, ahead of Hamilton and Alonso.^[9] Hamilton was fastest in the second session, ahead of Rosberg, Alonso and Felipe Massa – although the Mercedes driver had run wide during the practice session. The session was disrupted by incidents as Pastor Maldonado struck the barriers and Esteban Gutiérrez spun off – both incidents requiring a suspension as marshals needed to clear the track of both cars.^[10]

The qualifying session on Saturday afternoon was split into three parts. The first part ran for 18 minutes and eliminated the cars from qualifying that finished 17th or lower. During this session, the 107% rule was in effect, which necessitated each driver to set a time within 107% of the quickest lap to qualify for the race. The second part of qualifying lasted 15 minutes and eliminated cars in positions 11 to 16. The final part of qualifying determined positions from first to tenth, and decided pole position.^[8]

Rosberg took his seventh pole position of the season, and his first at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, with a time of 2:05.591. Hamilton qualified behind him in second, complaining of glazed brakes.^[11] This was Hamilton's first front row start since the 2014 Canadian Grand Prix five races previously, having suffered a string of various qualifying issues.

Race

The race started at 14:00 local time (UTC+1). The conditions on the grid were dry before the race. Alonso's car stalled on the grid, and later got off the grid to retake his starting position. The race was made controversial when on lap two, the two Mercedes drivers collided going into Les Combes, puncturing Hamilton's tyre and damaging Rosberg's front wing.^[12] The incident was later deemed Rosberg's fault by the Mercedes team.^[13]

Post-race

The race result left Rosberg leading the Drivers' Championship with 220 points. Hamilton, who failed to score in Belgium, was second with 191 points, 35 points ahead of Ricciardo and 70 ahead of Alonso. Bottas was fifth with 110 points. In the Constructors' Championship, Mercedes maintained their lead with 411 points, Red Bull retained second with 254 points, and Ferrari remained in third with 160 points, with seven races of the season remaining.

Shortly after the race, Hamilton accused Rosberg of deliberately crashing into him; Hamilton stated that Rosberg "said he did it on purpose, he said he could have avoided it. He said "I did it to prove a point." Rosberg initially denied any wrongdoing, saying that "I gave it a go. I didn't see any risk in trying to overtake, so why should I not try?" Mercedes executive director Toto Wolff said that "We had a collision that could have been avoided, a second-lap collision. It was Nico who attacked and he shouldn't have done it." At that point, it appeared that the team was letting the rivalry between Rosberg and Hamilton grow out of control, following a prior incident at the Monaco Grand Prix.^[14]

Classification

Qualifying

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Q1	Q2	Q3	Grid
1	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	2:07.130	2:06.723	2:05.591	1
2	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	2:07.280	2:06.609	2:05.819	2
3	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	2:10.105	2:08.868	2:07.717	3
4	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	2:10.197	2:08.450	2:07.786	4
5	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	2:10.089	2:08.989	2:07.911	5
6	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	2:09.250	2:08.451	2:08.049	6
7	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	2:11.081	2:08.901	2:08.679	7
8	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	2:09.885	2:08.646	2:08.780	8
9	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	2:08.403	2:08.833	2:09.178	9
10	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	2:10.529	2:09.272	2:09.776	10
11	26	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso-Renault	2:10.445	2:09.377		11
12	25	Jean-Éric Vergne	Toro Rosso-Renault	2:09.811	2:09.805		12
13	11	Sergio Pérez	Force India-Mercedes	2:10.666	2:10.084		13
14	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	2:11.051	2:10.238		14
15	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	2:10.898	2:11.087		15
16	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	2:11.051	2:12.470		16
17	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	2:11.261			17
18	27	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	2:11.267			18
19	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	2:12.566			19
20	21	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber-Ferrari	2:13.414			20
21	45	André Lotterer	Caterham-Renault	2:13.469			21
22	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	2:14.438			22
107% time: 2:16.029
Source:[15]

Race

Pos.	No.	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	3	Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull Racing-Renault	44	1:24:36.556	5	25
2	6	Nico Rosberg	Mercedes	44	+3.383	1	18
3	77	Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	44	+28.032	6	15
4	7	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	44	+36.815	8	12
5	1	Sebastian Vettel	Red Bull Racing-Renault	44	+52.196	3	10
6	22	Jenson Button	McLaren-Mercedes	44	+54.580	10	8
7	14	Fernando Alonso	Ferrari	44	+1:01.162	4	6
8	11	Sergio Pérez	Force India-Mercedes	44	+1:04.293	13	4
9	26	Daniil Kvyat	Toro Rosso-Renault	44	+1:05.347	11	2
10	27	Nico Hülkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	44	+1:05.697	18	1
11	25	Jean-Éric Vergne	Toro Rosso-Renault	44	+1:11.920	12
12^1	20	Kevin Magnussen	McLaren-Mercedes	44	+1:14.262	7
13	19	Felipe Massa	Williams-Mercedes	44	+1:15.975	9
14	99	Adrian Sutil	Sauber-Ferrari	44	+1:22.447	14
15	21	Esteban Gutiérrez	Sauber-Ferrari	44	+1:30.825	20
16	4	Max Chilton	Marussia-Ferrari	43	+1 lap	19
17	9	Marcus Ericsson	Caterham-Renault	43	+1 lap	22
18	17	Jules Bianchi	Marussia-Ferrari	39	Gearbox	16
Ret	44	Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes	38	Collision damage	2
Ret	8	Romain Grosjean	Lotus-Renault	33	Power unit	15
Ret	45	André Lotterer	Caterham-Renault	1	Electrical	21
Ret	13	Pastor Maldonado	Lotus-Renault	1	Exhaust	17
Source:[16]

^1  — Kevin Magnussen originally finished sixth but had 20 seconds added to his race time for forcing Fernando Alonso off track.^[16]

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings Pos. Driver Points 1 Nico Rosberg 220 2 Lewis Hamilton 191 3 Daniel Ricciardo 156 4 Fernando Alonso 121 5 Valtteri Bottas 110

Constructors' Championship standings Pos. Constructor Points 1 Mercedes 411 2 Red Bull Racing-Renault 254 3 Ferrari 160 4 Williams-Mercedes 150 1 5 McLaren-Mercedes 105

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.

References

1. "Spa-Francorchamps". Formula1.com. Formula One World Championship Limited. 2014. Archived from the original on July 30, 2014. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
2. "World Motor Sports Council". FIA.com. FIA. 4 December 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2014.
3. McEvoy, Jonathan (24 August 2014). "Daniel Ricciardo wins Belgian Grand Prix as Lewis Hamilton is forced to retire after collision with team-mate Nico Rosberg". Daily Mail (DMG Media). Retrieved 26 August 2014.
4. "Belgian Grand Prix – Preview 2014". FIA.com. Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. 20 August 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
5. "Andre Lotterer replaces Kamui Kobayashi at Caterham F1 team". Autosport. Haymarket Publications. 20 August 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
6. "Rossi to replace Chilton at Marussia for Spa weekend". Formula1.com. Formula One Management. 21 August 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
7. Galloway, James (22 August 2014). "Max Chilton to race in Belgian GP after all as Marussia U-turn on Alex Rossi decision". Sky Sports F1. BSkyB. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
8. "2014 Formula One Sporting Regulations" (PDF). FIA.com. Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile. 12 March 2014. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
9. Codling, Stuart (22 August 2014). "Belgian GP: Nico Rosberg quickest in opening practice session". Autosport. Haymarket Publishing. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
10. Benson, Andrew (22 August 2014). "Belgian GP: Hamilton dominant in second practice at Spa". BBC Sport. British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
11. Benson, Andrew (23 August 2014). "Lewis Hamilton beaten to pole by Nico Rosberg at Belgian GP". BBC Sport. British Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 25 August 2014.
12. Johnson, Daniel (24 August 2014). "Lewis Hamilton says Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg crashed into him on purpose in Belgian Grand Prix". The Daily Telegraph (Telegraph Media Group). Retrieved 26 August 2014.
13. Richards, Giles (24 August 2014). "Daniel Ricciardo wins F1's Belgian GP as Hamilton-Rosberg spat reignites". The Guardian (Guardian Media Group). Retrieved 26 August 2014.
14. Richards, Giles (24 August 2014). "Lewis Hamilton claims Nico Rosberg deliberately crashed into him at Spa". The Guardian (Guardian Media Group). Retrieved 18 November 2014.
15. "Belgian Grand Prix 2014 Qualifying Results". formula1.com. 23 August 2014. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014. Retrieved 23 August 2014.
16. "Belgian Grand Prix – Race". eurosport.yahoo.com. 24 August 2014. Retrieved 24 August 2014.

External links