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Well the Belgian Grand Prix has come and gone again, with Max Verstappen leaving a
sizeable bootprint across the whole track, having looked entirely unstoppable despite
taking a back-of-the-grid power unit penalty. He could have started from
Hungary and made his way through to the lead. But Max Verstappen wasn’t the only driver to start
from the back of the grid, with Norris, Ocon, Zhou, Schumacher and his “championship rival”
(in courtesy only) Charles Leclerc all being sent to the supposed ‘back of the grid’.
But they can’t all start from the back of the grid. There’s only
one back-of-the-grid slot so let’s do a little refresher on how power unit penalties work,
especially as we’re now in the part of the season where people are going to be exceeding their power
unit element allowances a little more readily. OK, so power units. To stop teams spending an
absurd amount of money blasting through power unit bits that are only designed to last a single race,
there is an overall limit on how many of each power unit element can be used across the season.
Over the year, each car can use 3 fresh elements each of the internal combustion engine,
the MGUs K and H and the Turbocharger. The Energy Store (or battery) and the Control Electronics
each have an allowance of two, and the engine Exhaust systems have a limit of 8 fresh elements.
If at any point in the season a car takes a fresh power unit element that goes over
its allowed limit… that’s when penalties come in. Penalties come in two flavours.
If this is the first time that specific element goes over its limit, you get a ten place grid
penalty. After that, every time you take a new version of that element it’s a 5 place penalty.
If you replace a whole bunch of elements in one go and the penalties add up to
more than 15 grid slots, then this gets turned into a ‘back of the grid penalty’,
instead of how it worked previously where drivers could amass huge grid penalties. Sometimes, 50,
60, 70 place grid penalties, which was very silly. And you could think that if a car already has a
‘back of the grid’ penalty, you could just keep changing power unit parts at
that grand prix without further penalty. Just change the combustion engine 3, 4,
5 times and now all those engines are in your pool without punishment, right?
Well, no, because if any driver introduces more than one of the same power unit element
which is subject to penalty, only the very last one can continue to be used
later in the season without further penalties. So if you want to use these ones again, well.
Those will be hit with penalties down the line. Now, a funny thing happened in Belgium with
power unit penalties. Ferrari attempted to play silly buggers with the way they took
penalties on Leclerc’s car to avoid a back of the grid penalty and start ahead of Verstappen.
So Verstappen and Leclerc’s PU element usage before Belgium looked like this:
Verstappen hadn’t made any breaches but was up to the limit on his ICE, the MGUs and the Turbo.
Leclerc had breached the ICE, MGUs, Turbo and Control Electonics already and was up
to the limit on the Energy Store and Exhaust. Red Bull chose to replace Verstappen’s Energy
Store and Control Electronics. Each of these is a first time breach of that type of element,
so each is worth a ten place grid penalty. Added together, that’s twenty places. 20 is more than
15, so Verstappen gets a back of the grid penalty. And, as mentioned Norris, Ocon, Zhou,
and Schumacher also has back of the grid penalties. So how do you resolve
who starts ahead of whom? Well that’s just done on qualifying. So these guys still have
to fight it out in qualifying to start as high as they possibly can, within their own group.
Now, Leclerc then. Ferrari changed his Energy Store and MGU-K for FP1.
The Energy Store was a first time breach, worth 10 grid slots, the MGU-K a second time breach so only
worth 5. Together, that’s a fifteen place grid penalty. Fifteen is not more than 15,
so that’s not a ‘back of the grid’ penalty. Then in FP2, they changed Leclerc’s Control
Electronics, a penalty of 5 positions. Again, not more than 15 so also doesn’t
reach a ‘back of the grid’ penalty. So what Ferrari were wangling for is that
each bulk change of components - first the one in FP1, then the one in FP2 - was a separate penalty.
So Leclerc’s penalty would be a 15 place drop. And then, separately, a 5 place drop. And these
penalties would result in him starting higher than any car sent ‘to the back of the grid’.
And the stewards said, ‘look we get what you’re trying to do, and yes you can sort of read the
rules that way, but also the penalties are intended to be read cumulatively,
so even if you accumulate grid penalties across various separate breaches of the rules,
if they add up to more than 15, you still get sent to the back of the grid’
This was the first time this had happened, so good to have it cleared up. This means that a
driver could have a ten place grid penalty for power unit stuff, a five place grid penalty
for blocking in qualifying and a 3 place grid penalty for something he did in the previous
race and as those add up to 18, the stewards would just send him to the back of the grid.
So once that was all cleared up, Ferrari shoved in 5 new power unit elements for good measure,
completing the set. So, why did so many teams
take power unit penalties here in Spa? Well, as I said, we’re entering into that part of the year
where power units are getting a bit old and teams have to take a good, honest look at whether or not
they’re going to need to introduce new elements to make it through the rest of the season.
And if you’re going to need to breach your allowed limits, do it tactically.
At Spa, you can overtake. Especially with fresh engine bits. I think we saw that
aplenty with those forced to the back of the grid. We’ve got Zandvoort, Monza and Singapore coming
up, which are trickier to overtake on. So why not take the penalties where their effect is weakest,
because you won’t be stuff at the back the whole race. As we saw, Verstappen actually won,
and easily. That might not have been the case at any of the next three races
if he’d had to start six or seven rows back. Also, Belgium and Monza are power circuits that
work the power units pretty hard to it’s good to get some fresh bits in there and take advantage.
So, Verstappen then. What can you say really? Absolutely unstoppable. He was fast across the
weekend, but if we look at his race pace compared to his team mate, the Ferraris and Russell,
he was fastest of all of them at basically every single point other than the briefest of
moments where his rivals stopped for fresh tyres. In his first stint on softs, he outpaced those
on softs and mediums, and took them further than any of his closest rivals - to lap 15.
In his middle stint on mediums he was about a second faster than Perez and
2-3 seconds faster than either Ferrari. He was still fastest on his final medium stint.
You could say laptimes were a bit tighter here but Max was cruising in the lead at this point,
having a lovely time. Even Leclerc’s botched attempt at a last minute stop for fastest lap
didn’t even come close to Verstappen’s. He was six tenths off on a softer tyre and a lighter car,
though had managed to get himself into an accidental scrap with Alonso, which didn’t help.
And let’s talk about that last second pitstop for Leclerc. Ferrari wanted to
salvage something from a bit of a dire race in which Leclerc was running 5th,
four places behind his so-called rival, having had nowhere near the pace to challenge the Red Bulls.
It’s not unusual for teams to take a last minute extra stop to go for Fastest Lap glory,
but the key part of that decision is normally looking to see if there’s a big enough gap behind.
You want to be able to get in and out of the pits without losing position, as track position is
really the most valuable part of this equation. Leclerc was only 19 seconds ahead of Alonso.
But Ferrari thought, “no worries, we’ll be so fast that we’ll just overtake Alonso straight away and
get on with setting the fastest lap” This was lap 43 out of 44. So Leclerc
had to do one out lap and then set the fastest lap on the final lap. One chance.
Unfortunately, Leclerc did not overtake Alonso on his outlap, so followed him all
the way around the track through Lap 43. He did manage to overtake him on Lap 44
down the Kemmel Straight, but that had already cost him. And he didn’t get the fastest lap.
And THEN he got penalised 5 seconds for speeding in the pitlane and lost
5th position to Alonso after all. So that last minute attempt at a fastest lap didn’t get Leclerc
an extra point. It cost him two points. It would be immensely funny if Ferrari
suddenly got themselves sorted and had an amazing run to the end of the season,
dominating the Red Bulls, only to lose by 2 points due to this error. Anyway.
So was this a massive blunder by Ferrari? Eh. I mean it was a bit embarrassing and another notch
in the bedpost of Ferrari’s overall bad decisions, but, I don’t know. It was probably worth a go at
this point, with the situation they’re in. Choosing to take an extra pitstop comes
with a lot of risks. You could speed in the pitlane. You could have a slow stop with a stuck
wheel. You could get stuck in traffic. It adds a lot of time to your race. That’s why
teams favour as few pitstops as possible unless it’s definitely, definitely faster.
Ferrari knew the risk and god love ‘em for trying. If I were Perez, I might be a little downcast
that my team mate who started 13 places behind me finished 18 seconds ahead of me and won the race.
But, you can see from the strategies that Max was always on a faster tyre, was a faster driver and
made the most of opportunities given to him. Leclerc ended up having the most interesting
strategy as he essentially ran a one stop on medium tyres only. These little soft
stint bookends are just flourishes, his race was essentially soft only. And SLOW.
Interesting to briefly note that Russell was faster than Sainz for quite a lot of this race.
Sainz outpaced him on Softs early on, and had a good first few laps on mediums.
But actually, through most of the race, save for the undercuts from Sainz,
Russell is running at very good relative pace. And an error from him late on probably cost him
from actually grabbing that final podium pace, which would have been quite the boon for Mercedes
after a bit of a dire weekend up to that point. They were slow. Their raw power pace was lacking,
and this is abundantly clear through the speed traps.
Speed is recorded at four places around the circuit. At the start of each sector,
and through a speed trap at the top of Eau Rouge as they enter the Kemmel straight.
Let’s have a look at the recorded max speeds of each car through qualifying.
Over the Finish line, the Mercedes don’t look too bad, speed wise.
But we’re basically right off the back of a tight chicane and accelerating down a short straight.
So in this traction zone, sure. They’re fine. And at the end of Sector 2, here, yeah the
Mercedes look pretty good, relatively. 2nd and 3rd through the speed traps, but again this isn’t
a full beans, top speed zone. This is a medium speed corner, where grip and stability are key.
But if we look at the Speed Trap at the top of Eau Rouge, then the Mercs fall to 17th and 19th
overall. They just don’t have the top speeds, the horse power, the slippery efficient aero.
But it’s not just engine power, as Albon and the McLarens are way ahead. The Mercedes are
the slowest of the Mercedes powered cars here. And at the end of the Kemmel straight,
they’ve got a bit better with the 6th and 10th best speeds but are still significantly
off Sainz and the Red Bulls. Leclerc had a ropey one, though, to be fair.
But we’ve seen many time this year - Mercedes seem to be able to make up for their raw,
hotlap pace by the time they get to do a full race distance and so it proved with Russell
probably getting almost the best he could from his car. A podium was possible, but it was close.
Hamilton on the other hand… well he made a big error.
On the first lap, he was chasing Alonso down the Kemmel straight. Alonso covered
the inside so Hamilton darted to the outside. As they headed through Les Combes, Hamilton
attempts to pass around the outside but squeezes Alonso. They collide, with Hamilton’s back wheel
catching Alonso’s front. Hamilton is launches, causing terminal damage, but Alonso carries on.
And it’s probably a just thing that Hamilton retired and Alonso was able to continue because
this was fully Lewis’s fault, this time. Alonso stays fully tucked to the inside. He’s in control.
He’s holding a tight line. And Hamilton pinches him, despite having a lot of room on the outside.
He was very lucky not to face a penalty. The stewards deemed it a ‘first lap incident’ with
‘a lot of movement relative to other cars in the first few corners’ so gave no penalty. But,
to be honest, but the time they got Les Combes chicane, Alonso and Hamilton
were pretty isolated in their own battle. Hamilton wasn’t exactly ducking and weaving
between cars at this point. He only had to mind Alonso. So, lucky to be unpenalised.
From Hamilton’s perspective, he says Alonso was just in his blind spot at that point and he,
Lewis, made an error turning across that hard. And Hamilton paid the price in retirement,
ultimately, so I guess they’re all square. Next up is the Netherlands and I think
we’re now all just wondering when, not if, Verstappen will clinch the title.
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