Belgium: pre-race 2019

Sad news has to be added to the start of this blog. In the F2 race that took place after F1 qualifying, a fatal accident tragically occurred. I don’t follow F2, but by all accounts Anthoine Hubert was a talented young man with a bright future ahead of him. A sad day for motorsport.

***

A modestly green start to the Belgian weekend, with the bet’s each way aspect coming off.

Mercedes were still bolting Hamilton’s car back together following his crash in third practice as the qualifying began. They were gifted five extra minutes, which probably weren’t needed, when Kubica’s Williams emitted a huge plume of smoke from its dying engine. After Perez suffered likewise, Mercedes may be feeling a bit nervous about their engine (and it’s worth considering for the race). Later in the session, Giovinazzi’s new Ferrari engine also went kaput.

Unsurprisingly, Russell failed to escape Q1. Both Toro Rossos were unable to progress, but more surprising was Sainz being eliminated (behind Gasly). Early signs were that Ferrari were a second or so faster than Mercedes. Ominous.

In Q2, Giovinazzi had a place but not a working car, so qualified 15^th. Haas were 10^th and 11^th, Magnussen advancing and Grosjean not (rumour has it Hulkenberg may end up in the Frenchman’s seat). Norris, Stroll, and Albon all got eliminated here, with the latter two having back-of-the-grid penalties. The top chaps all qualified on the soft tyre, which apparently can fall off a cliff pretty damned quickly, so anticipate swift early stops tomorrow (this may aid Red Bull, who seem to be a bit kinder to their tyres). In this session, Mercedes appeared closer to Ferrari.

And so to Q3. Would Leclerc continue his dominance? Could Mercedes get a car on the front row? Yes and no. On the first runs it was Leclerc-Hamilton-Vettel-Bottas, but on the second go, Vettel snuck a hundredth or two ahead of Hamilton to make it an all-Ferrari front row. But he was three-quarters of a second off his team mate. Which is an embarrassingly enormous gap. Hamilton was about a tenth ahead of Bottas.

Verstappen had some off-on power problems but managed to get 5^th, three-tenths off Bottas (in a seemingly fully functional car). Race pace will be better and he stands a chance of a podium. He shares row three with Ricciardo, who was over half a second slower but a few tenths up on Hulkenberg, who leads row four ahead of Raikkonen (just a hundredth off the German).

Row five is Perez and Magnussen, although I’m not sure if Perez has an engine-related penalty.

The race should be dry and fairly cool (as an aside, 18C or so, which is about 10C cooler than the earlier BBC forecast a few days ago).

Stroll, Albon, and Kvyat start at the back [Kubica at the very back due to qualifying engine woe] due to multiple power unit changes. Kvyat also gets a five place penalty for changing his gearbox. Hulkenberg, Ricciardo, and Sainz drop five places each due to changing parts of power units. This means Sainz actually starts higher than he qualified… (16^th versus 17^th).

Bets to consider:

Hamilton/Bottas DNF (engine woe)

Verstappen podium

Leclerc win/fastest lap

Hamilton is 8 and Bottas 7 not to be classified. Given the new Mercedes engines have blown up a third of the time so far this weekend (Kubica and Perez) and there’s always the chance of a lap 1 pileup, this is quick tempting.

Verstappen is 2.62 for a podium. Mixed feelings on that. He’s driving extremely well this year, but is down on power compared to others and, worse, suffered power problems in qualifying. If they recur even briefly that could easily cost him 10s or so.

Leclerc is 1.72 for the win. He’s rightly the favourite, and was miles ahead of everyone else in qualifying. The downside risk is that the Ferrari’s tyres reportedly crumbled quickly. There’s also the minor possibility of rain, (like certain other races, Spa has a bit of a micro-climate). Not so fond of such short odds generally. Leclerc is also 4 for the fastest lap. He’s only had two so far this season, at Bahrain and Azerbaijan. One of which he was dominating, and the other of which he had great pace but buggered up qualifying (if memory serves). If he gets to the latter stages this might be good, the problem is that the top few drivers/teams know how things work and are likely to pit a chap with a stop in hand over the midfield to try and get that final point. Bottas/Verstappen at 5.5 each may make more sense. The combined odds of win/fastest lap at 5. Not a fan of that, as either bit can fail.

As usual, I perused the markets to see if anything caught my eye. The following did:

Verstappen to beat Bottas, 1.9

Hamilton to beat Vettel, 2.2

Verstappen will be relatively faster in the race due to the swankier engine modes for Mercedes in qualifying (reportedly increased with the new, exploding engine). If the Dutchman’s own power problems stay at bay, he has a good chance of getting Bottas. I think.

Hamilton was essentially on pace with Vettel in qualifying, despite the Ferrari’s seeming pace advantage. Race pace is expected to be a bit lower for the Prancing Horse, which might well need to come into the pits for new horseshoes and hand an advantage to the Silver Arrows (Hamilton is 4 to win, incidentally, or 4.33 enhanced win only, compared to 5.5 yesterday, pre-qualifying).

One or two tasty morsels there.

Tips:

I’m going to split one stake for equal profits between Bottas at 7 and Hamilton at 8 to DNF. The new engines and possibility of lap 1 woe is too high to ignore.

I’ve also backed Hamilton to beat Vettel at 2.25. Little bit iffy due to engine stuff, but if the rain of the morning persists, that helps Hamilton. He should have better tyre life too. And in Bahrain, where Leclerc was dominant until gremlins attacked, Hamilton had the better of Vettel by a clear margin.

Race start is just after 2pm UK time.

Morris Dancer