What to expect from the 2018 Belgian GP?
After 26 days of silence, the sound of roaring F1 engines will again echo between the hills of the Ardennes. This Friday the 2018 F1 season continues with the first practice for the 2018 Belgian Formula 1 Grand Prix after summer break. What to expect from the 2018 Belgian GP?
The F1 silly season is on full throttle with a lot of driver transfer news during the summer break we sum up the highlights for you:
- Lance Stroll's father has bought a huge share of the Force India team
- Daniel Ricciardo is switching from Red Bull to the slower Renault F1 team
- Fernando Alonso will quit F1 at the end of this 2018 season
- McLaren confirmed Carlos Sainz as driver for 2019
- Gasly gets 2019 Red Bull Racing seat
We also made up the 2019 F1 teams page, were you find an overview of all race seats that are still available.
The Belgian F1 GP will be already the 13th race of the very epic 2018 season with 21 races in total. We have had 4 different grand prix winners of three different teams so far. Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton is the leader of the 2018 F1 driver championship. He leads Ferrari driver Sebastian Vettel by 24 points. He drove brilliant races and hasn't made a single mistake this season, but he also has been quite lucky.
His first win this season in Azerbaijan was sort of a gift when race leader and teammate Valtteri Bottas got a puncture with 2 laps to go and he was driving 2nd. In Spain the teams got a new sort of tyre specification from Pirelli that confused Ferrari and was in favour of Mercedes and brought their first 1-2 finish.
In Germany Hamilton drove again a very strong race. He won the race from P14 on the grid and was lucky not to be penalised by the stewards for crossing 2 white lines during a safety car period, because race leader and title rival Vettel braked to late during wet conditions in turn 13 and crashed out off the race. This gave Hamilton the lead of the race and the GP win.
Mercedes has admit that the Ferrari power unit has more horsepower, but Vettel's mistake in Germany could be very unfortunate for his 5th F1 title aspirations he lost 25 point in his home town.
Except for the Russian GP the 2018 Formula One calendar is identical to the last part of the 2017 f1 schedule. Mercedes won 7 races out of the 9 races last year, that are left on the calendar. Looking at those figures the title battle will stay very exciting till the last race in Abu Dhabi.
Vettel has won 4 races before the summer break just like last year. In the second part of the season he only won in Brazil, mainly because Mercedes and Red Bull did a better job on developing their car than Ferrari did.
Next stop is the favourite track of many drivers and the most beautiful one: The Spa-Francorchamps circuit. What to expect from the 2018 Belgian F1 GP?
2018 Belgian GP facts & Figures
The Belgian F1 Grand Prix on Spa-Francorchamps was first held in 1950. It's the 63rd time the Belgian Formula 1 Grand Prix is being organised and the 51st time the race will be driven on Spa-Francorchamps. Spa-Francorchamps was first used for racing in the 1920's. It then was a 14 km long track. The last race on the old circuit was driven in 1970.
Almost all tickets are sold out for this weekend race. Their will be a lot of orange people from the Netherlands to support their hero Max Verstappen. The track is only half and hour away from the Dutch border. Hopefully their will also be lot of Belgium people to support Belgian driver Stoffel Vandoorne.
Spa-Francorchamps is also an old school track. It's a very fast and technical track with 19 corners. The circuit is driven clockwise, has 9 right-hand and 10 left-hand corners.
the Belgian circuit is very long. With 7.004 m long, it's the longest track of the calendar. It has 2 DRS-zones and passing is not very difficult. There are 3 spots where you will see driver passing each other. That's Kemmel straight (between turn 4 and 5), in the braking zone just before turn 18 (bus-stop chicane) and in the braking zone before turn 1 (La Source hairpin).
The highest speed driven in last years race was 355 km/h at the end of the Kemmel straight. The slowest part of the track is La Source haripin (turn 1) with 95 km/h.
The official lap record on Spa is 1:46.577 min set by Sebastian Vettel in last years edition with the Ferrari SF70H. This year the cars are over 1,5 seconds faster already, so if the track stays dry, which you never know in the Ardennes, the track record will probably be broken again this year.
Out of all drivers that won the Belgian GP, Michael Schumacher is again the one who won here the most races. He won 6 times and Ayrton Senna 5x, Jim Clark 4 times. Senna and Clark are the only drivers who won the race 4 times in a row.
Of the current drivers Kimi Raikkonen won the Belgian GP the most times. He won the prestigious race 4 times (2004, 2005, 2007 & 2009). Hamilton won here 3 times (2010, 20115 & 2017) and Vettel 2 times (2011 & 2013).
Not many driver got there first win on Spa. Out of the current drivers nobody scored their first win or even a first podium in the Ardennes. It was the first win for Michael Schumacher back in 1992 for Benetton. Just one year later than his debut in 1991 for Jordan.
In the 62 races before, Ferrari won the most races with 16 victories. Mclaren won 14 times, Mercedes and Williams both 4 , Red Bull 3 races and Renault once back in 1983.
The last race was dominated by Hamilton in the Mercedes. The British driver started from pole and drove to the finish to win his 200th race start. We did see some brave moves by Vettel who started from P2, but the Ferrari engine was just not powerful enough to overtake the Mercedes on Kemmel straight.
Vettel had to settle for 2nd best and Daniel Ricciardo who started 6th on the grid, concurred the podium as 3rd by passing Bottas. He passed Verstappen because he had an engine failure and Raikkonen who got penalised by ignoring a double yellow flag zone when Verstappen retired on Kemmel straight.
Belgian F1 GP 2018 Tyres
At first glance, it would appear that the compounds selected for this weekend’s Belgian Grand Prix: Medium, Soft and Supersoft, are a step harder than the choices made for the same race last year (Soft, Supersoft, Ultrasoft). But in reality, that isn’t the case, because all the 2018 compounds are a step softer than their 2017 equivalents. So, in actual fact, the choice is exactly the same.
The reason for maintaining the same choice, despite the increased performance from the cars this year, is down to the unique characteristics of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
Although it’s the longest track of the year, with some big corners and compression's that put plenty of energy through the tyres, the compounds selected last year proved to be the right choice for this epic circuit.
The stresses on the tyres come from all directions in Spa: lateral, longitudinal and also vertical, as the drivers tackle the famous downhill then uphill compression at Eau Rouge, with high speeds and extreme vertical loads.
Last year, a two-stopper proved to be the winning strategy, but this was influenced by a late safety car (not uncommon at Spa) that effectively allowed a ‘free’ pit stop.
Spa-Francorchamps Weather Forecast
weather forrecast Spa-Francorchamps 2018 on Monday Aug 20
The weather around the Spa is very unpredictable and the weather predictions for upcoming weekend are wet!
Friday looks to start off dry, but around 10 in the morning a few showers are predicted. The rest of the day will be dry, but the temperatures won't get higher than only 15ºC. On Saturday the whole day will be filled with showers. It will be dry in the evening and 12ºC even colder than Friday.
weather forrecast Spa-Francorchamps 2018 on Monday Aug 22
Last Monday when this article was published the weather forecast for Sunday was predicted to be wet. Now on Wednesday it's already changed into dry and mostly sunny.
So the race looks to be dry after all!
Who will be on the 2018 Belgian F1 GP podium?
The Spa circuit is a real power unit circuit. The track has an elevation of 100 meters. From Au Rouge to the top of Les Combes the cars have to climb 80 meters in 1,5 km, which is in favour of the cars with the most powerful engine system.
The current Ferrari power unit is the most powerful on the grid. Raikkonen won the most races of the current drivers in Spa and is dying for a race win. He hasn't won a race in over 5 years! His last win was March 17, 2013 at the Australian F1 GP for Lotus. So should be considered as a race win contender, just like his teammate Vettel and both Mercedes drivers Hamilton and Bottas.
On Monday the race looked to be driven under wet conditions and we predicted that Hamilton would win it, just like he did the last 9 rain-affected races. But the because the weather prediction changed in to dry, the prediction also has changed a lot into the favour of Ferrari.
As we said horsepower is very important on Spa. Because most overtaking is done on Kemmel straight, right after Au Rouge corner. This is an uphill straight with DRS, so the one with the most speed will certainly have the most change to pass other drivers. Last year we saw that Mercedes clearly had the highest top speed on Kemmel straight. Vettel was right on Hamilton's tail from La Source hairpin and did everything right, but you could see on Kemmel straight that he didn't had enough horsepower to pass his rival and had to settle for 2nd.
the Red Bull RB14 is fitted with the Renault power unit and is still is no match for the much more powerful Mercedes and Ferrari power unit's. So is nothing strange happens with Ferrari and Mercedes they have a very small change to get on the podium.
When you look at the statistics of previous Grand Prix on Spa, you see that Raikkonen has won the most races. Because Ferrari had the faster car before the summer break, you have to say that Raikkonen has the biggest change to win the race in the Ferrari SF71H. But because Vettel is the clear no.1 driver at Ferrari and fighting for the championship with Hamilton, we might witness that Raikkonen will have to give a race win to his teammate Vettel.
We don't know what the F1 Belgian Grand Prix betting odds are, but our prediction for upcoming dry 2018 Belgian Grand Prix.will be:
1. Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari), 2. Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari), 3. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)
Below you can find the selected tyre sets by each driver for the 2018 Belgian F1 GP.
The drivers have made full use of all three nominated compounds, with McLaren choosing the same quantity of the hardest compound (Medium) as the softest compound (Supersoft).
If the race will be wet the whole selected sets schedule is useless, because all drivers will use wet (blue) or intermediate (green) Pirelli tyres.
Selected sets for the 2018 Belgian F1 GP
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