Pretty meh race in the end, once again we had to wait too long to restart so it was basically ready for slicks straight away. Once everyone had put the slicks on it was pretty clear that a one stop was possible. Was there a reason Hulk pitted? Seemed like a really dumb move at the time.
this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2025
19 points (95.2% liked)
Formula 1
10290 readers
12 users here now
Welcome to Formula1 @ lemmy.world Lemmy's largest community for Formula 1 and related racing series
๐ F1 Calendar
๐ FIA Documents
๐ F1 Pace
2025 Calendar
| Location | Date |
|---|---|
| ๐ญ๐บ Hungary | 01-03 Aug |
| ๐ณ๐ฑ Netherlands | 29-31 Aug |
| ๐ฎ๐น Italy | 05-07 Sep |
| ๐ฆ๐ฟ Azerbaijan | 19-21 Sep |
| ๐ธ๐ฌ Singapore | 03-05 Oct |
| ๐บ๐ธ United States | 17-19 Oct |
| ๐ฒ๐ฝ Mexico | 24-26 Oct |
| ๐ง๐ท Brazil | 07-09 Nov |
| ๐บ๐ธ United States | 20-22 Nov |
| ๐ถ๐ฆ Qatar | 28-30 Nov |
| ๐ฆ๐ช Abu Dhabi | 05-07 Dec |
Rules
- Be respectful to everyone: drivers, lemmings etc
- No gambling, crypto or NFTs
- Spoilers are allowed
- Non English articles should include a translation in the comments by deepl.com or similar
- Paywalled articles should include at least a brief summary in the comments, the wording of the article should not be altered
- Social media posts should be posted as screenshots with a link for those who want to view it
- Memes are allowed on Monday only as we all do like a laugh or 2, but donโt want to become formuladank.
- No duplicate posts, or posts of different news companies that say the same thing.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
ROUND 13: ๐ง๐ช Belgium
FORMULA 1 MOรT & CHANDON BELGIAN GRAND PRIX 2025
Circuit stats
- First Grand Prix: 1950
- Number of laps: 44
- Circuit Length: 7.004 km
- Race Distance: 308.052 km
- Lap record: 1:44.701 Sergio Perez (2024)
- 2024 winner: George Russel
Track Map
Ngl i thought the race today was a bit boring. Yes Hamilton did work and my boy hulkenburg was doing well, but overall i just wasent invested with this race for some reason. Maybe its just me but what do i know...
I know I'm opening a controversial topic here, but are we erring too much on the side of caution in modern F1? I'm not saying we should go back to the sixties and have multiple drivers die every season, but motorsports are inherently dangerous and shouldn't there be a level of acceptable risk that is higher than zero? Maybe I'm a psychopath, but I feel like we could trust the drivers a bit more. Surely we could have started this race 20 minutes earlier? There were dry patches showing when they started doing laps behind the safety car for fucks sake!
Anyway I don't have too much to say about the race itself honestly. I'm mostly feeling disillusioned about the state of things. I feel bad for all the drivers that went to a wet setup.
Also I've already opened controversial doors this comment so fuck it, it needs to be said: is Spa just a bad track for modern F1?
Compared to just five years ago, they have been more risky during this and last season. We've seen more standing starts for example and just a few weeks ago in Silverstone we saw a crash at Copse corner (Hadjar rear-ended Antonelli) because visibility was so bad. At Spa, after multiple fatal accidents at the same corner over recent years, yes absolutely they'd rather err on the side of caution.
I think they want to be especially cautious at Spa, given that this track is responsible for multiple deaths in recent years (Anthoine Hubert, Dilano van 't Hoff) and major injuries (Jack Aitken in GT3).
They definitely could try out more things in general though, like sending out the safety car to do reconnaissance laps on the conditions earlier. Apparently during the first lap before the start was aborted, a lot of drivers complained about visibility though so you can argue that they were trusting the drivers judgements.
It's possible Spa has an extra level of caution associated with it, that's true.
I thought race direction was on the money today. I've no interest in stop start races or races with endless safety cars. F1 causes too much spray and if the drivers can't see you can't really justify a race with an acceptable level of risk. The only way we would get wetter races is with a complete redesign of the cars, which would probably lower the performance so much that it just wouldn't be F1 anymore.
You can have cars with different aero than ground effect and still be fast. The spray problem isn't an inherent "F1 problem", it's a problem with the current regs. We've had other regs that were equally fast but created less spray.
But even accounting for that this was a farce in my opinion. It was so dry when we eventually green flagged that people had to immediately actively look for wet patches off line to cool the inters and first reports of them overheating came on lap 2. Hell, we had a "wet race" with no Yellow flag, no retirement, no big moments from anyone and barely even anyone going off track.
We've had wetter races this season and it's been fine, but I guess being at Spa makes race control panic.
Fastest lap during the race for Antonelli. Hopefully that will help his confidence.
This race was boooooring. When it was a little bit wet there was some action, especially by Ham because he started so far back. But after the first round of pitstops it became boring real fast.
Ver could do nothing to Lec, he couldn't get close and even if he could the top speed of the Ferrari was such DRS wasn't enough to get him by on the straight.
Bor was all like "Let me by bro, why isn't he overtaking?" only to get stuck in the exact same place, not even getting into DRS range. Hul gave up and tried to do something with a pitstop, only to end back on the end of the train instead of in front of it.
Surely they had data from yesterday showing the deg on the mediums to be really low? It wasn't that big of a stretch to think Pia could easily make it on the mediums. Conditions were a bit different from yesterday, but I feel like the temperature being lower and the speeds being down would make the tyres degrade less, not more?
Then with 3 laps to go, Nor gaining 0.8 sec on Pia and being almost 5 secs behind him. Let me just do some quick maths... yeah no he ain't making it. But the commentary was going full COPIUM: "This is going to be epic you guys." Well no, even if somehow Nor got close, nobody was able to overtake at all. Let alone on super old tyres with the track being damp off-line.
They should have started the race so much earlier. The radar showed it being clear from 16:00, they just should have started then. Not all those laps behind the safety car. Once they get up to speed, they clear the track very quickly. Going slow behind the safety car doesn't help for shit.
I get Spa is special in how dangerous it is, especially the Kemmel straight that doesn't dry quickly and Dilano van 't Hoff being killed there just a few years ago. But at this rate they could better just not race at Spa, when it's dry it can get pretty boring and if it's wet it's too dangerous?
I did enjoy that tractor going down the straight at top speed tho, that was cool.