belgium grand prix

Thought so - I wrote this yesterday, but turns out I didn't post it!

During my absence I only missed blogging on the one grand prix, which was Spa Francochamps in Belgium.

Usually Spa is one of the best races of the year, as it has natural opportunities to overtake and the drivers enjoy racing there.  It's also a place where it often rains, and unpredictably so.  Because of the hills it has its own little micro-climate that can take the teams by surprise.

Having given it the big build-up this year's race was okay.  Qualifying was good as it was quite exciting.  The weather played a major part and parts of the sessions were wet.  However, in the race it stayed dry throughout.

I also have to say I think DRS ruins a circuit like Spa.  The problem is that there are good places to overtake, and they still use them, but because there's quite a big DRS section some of the time they wait until they can get on the DRS straight and simply overtake with the extra speed.  Which is the worst form of overtaking.

Good overtaking is getting them into the corner (or I guess sometimes when coming out of a corner) but simply driving past the other guy on the straight because you have extra speed that he doesn't isn't overtaking.  And there was a fair bit of that this year.

DRS does work on a handful of circuits (notably the circuits in the middle east) but the intention was meant to be that it aided overtaking, helping them get into an overtaking position, not that it allows them to drive past.