Belgian Grand Prix datafile

Date published : 30 Aug 2010 - 16:40:55

In the latest instalment of our regular post-race feature, itv.com/f1 brings you a driver-by-driver rundown of how the 24-man field fared over the Belgian Grand Prix weekend.With the three-day meeting being dogged by changeable weather, few drivers enjoyed straightforward weekends as Mother Nature made them adapt to different track conditions all the time.Jenson Button - McLaren-MercedesPractice: 6th / 7th / 4thTotal practice laps: 43Qualifying: 9th / 2nd / 5th Pit stop laps: -Result: retired, lap 15, collision damage Summary: Having been pleased with both his MP4-25's handling and general performance on Friday, Button was annoyed to only qualify fifth but felt, with changeable conditions likely, he was still in a good position for race day. That was going to plan largely too, a damaged front wing end plate aside, until Vettel unceremoniously took him out.  Lewis Hamilton - McLaren-MercedesPractice: 2nd / 3rd / 2ndTotal practice laps: 38Qualifying: 6th / 1st / 2ndPit stop laps: 24, 35Result: 1stSummary: The largely academic Q1 aside, Hamilton was never out of the top three throughout the three-day Spa weekend and took full advantage of McLaren's return to form. Once he passed the sluggish Webber off the line, he was never headed for the entire 44-lap race despite the changeable conditions and his own late scare at Rivarge.Michael Schumacher - MercedesPractice: 10th / 12th / 14thTotal practice laps: 48Qualifying: 5th / 11th [starts 21st due to penalty]Pit stop laps: 34Result: 7thSummary: Schumacher always knew his return to the race track he affectionately refers to as like his living room was always going to be difficult with a 10-place grid penalty hanging over him even before Mercedes showed little in the way of the top-10 pace throughout practice and then qualifying. Yet it turned out to be a largely encouraging weekend as he set a quicker qualifying lap than Rosberg (for just the third time) and then used all his experience to move up from 21st to seventh in the race as other young bucks faltered.Nico Rosberg - MercedesPractice: 13th / 13th / 15thTotal practice laps: 36Qualifying: 1st / 12th [starts 14th due to penalty]Pit stop laps: 34Result: 6thSummary: Rosberg struggled with understeer throughout Friday as Mercedes tried to get its refitted exhaust-fed diffuser to finally work without problem on the W01, then had to take a gearbox change after final practice which dropped him to 14th on the grid. He had opted for a wet set-up in qualifying though, which aided him after the late re-start when he impressively passed both Kobayashi and Schumacher by Les Combes.Sebastian Vettel - Red Bull-RenaultPractice: 4th / 6th / 3rdTotal practice laps: 42Qualifying: 11th / 3rd / 4thPit stop laps: 16, 26, 33, 36Result: 15thSummary: Mistakes in the slippery conditions on both his Q3 laps ended his run of four straight poles and the errors continued into Sunday's race as he clattered into Button after losing his RB6 on a bump for which he earned a drive-through penalty before later picking up a puncture when he clashed with Liuzzi. A late throw of the dice saw him take on the extreme wet tyres, which also failed to work.Mark Webber - Red Bull-RenaultPractice: 7th / 18th / 1stTotal practice laps: 40Qualifying: 8th / 4th / 1st Pit stop laps: 22, 35Result: 2ndSummary: The pre-weekend points leader played down his 18th place Friday finishing position amid the messy conditions, and on Saturday showed he indeed had no reason to be concerned as he topped final practice and then the decisive pole shootout. After his anti-stall kicked in off the startline it seemed a long way back to the podium, but some shrewd early passes, team-mate Vettel's wayward driving and Kubica's pit-stop slip combined to give him a potentially important 18 points.Felipe Massa - Ferrari Practice: 11th / 5th / 7thTotal practice laps: 50Qualifying: 10th / 7th / 6th Pit stop laps: 23, 35Result: 4thSummary: Overshadowed by Alonso again on Friday, Massa qualified four places ahead of the Spaniard despite some hairy moments in the wet as Ferrari's challenge surprisingly faded. The Brazilian then drove a steady race to fourth, keeping his head while others lost theirs in the sometimes very challenging conditions.Fernando Alonso - Ferrari Practice: 1st / 1st / 6thTotal practice laps: 53Qualifying: 7th / 8th / 10th Pit stop laps: 1, 4, 34Result: retired, lap 37, spun off Summary: His championship fightback seemed set to continue after he dominated Friday's rain-affected running, but in qualifying had only one set of new slicks available for Q3 which he used for final run when it started raining. Moved up two places at the start, but was clobbered by Barrichello at the end of the first lap. Somehow he was able to continue, but immediate gamble to inters backfired. By the time of the late rain shower he had fought his way back up to eighth, but then dropped it on a wet kerb at Malmedy.Rubens Barrichello - Williams-CosworthPractice: 9th / 9th / 13thTotal practice laps: 43Qualifying: 3rd / 9th / 7thPit stop laps: -Result: retired, lap 1, crashSummary: F1's most popular Brazilian was thoroughly enjoying his 300th grand prix weekend in the typically knife-edge Spa-Francorchamps weather conditions and equalled his season-high grid position of seventh. His milestone race lasted less than 4.35-miles however when he underestimated how wet the braking zone for the Bus Stop was and slammed into the side of Alonso.Nico Hulkenberg - Williams-Cosworth Practice: 12th / 15th / 9thTotal practice laps: 53Qualifying: 2nd / 10th / 9thPit stop laps: 16, 37Result: 14thSummary: The improving Williams rookie again did a solid top-10 job in qualifying and was running as high as seventh before a throttle control problem, which had developed earlier in the race, caused his FW32 to cut out at his lap 16 pit stop. From there the throttle issues caused him to have several spins, while an ill-advised gamble to stay on slicks in the late rain hardly helped matters. Robert Kubica - Renault Practice: 3rd / 4th / 5thTotal practice laps: 51Qualifying: 4th / 6th / 3rdPit stop laps: 23, 35Result: 3rdSummary: With Renault impressively getting its long-awaited F-duct to work well straight out of the box, the straightline speed boost allowed Kubica to run in the top six all weekend. Indeed he might even have hung on to his provisional front row slot had his R30 not cut out in the pit entry prior to his final Q3 run. In the race he drove strongly throughout, but let second slip when he overshot his pit box with nine laps to go while he adjusted settings on his steering wheel. Vitaly Petrov - RenaultPractice: 17th / 11th / 12thTotal practice laps: 54Qualifying: 24th [starts 23rd due to penalties ahead]Pit stop laps: 16, 34Result: 9thSummary: As rookie mistakes go, spinning on your Q1 out lap after going too far over a clearly wet piece of kerbing was a fairly embarrassing one to make. The tenacious Russian more than made up for it in the race though: he was up to 11th from 23rd by lap two, put the manners on Rosberg with an aggressive move at Les Combes and then held it all together to come home in the points again.Adrian Sutil - Force India-MercedesPractice: 5th / 2nd / 8thTotal practice laps: 46Qualifying: 12th / 5th / 8th Pit stop laps: 21, 34Result: 5thSummary: Served notice of Force India's Spa potential with Friday's second-fastest time in the drying afternoon session and then, after solidly making Q3 on Saturday, was a competitive proposition throughout the race and equalled the team's season-high watermark of fifth. Tonio Liuzzi - Force India-MercedesPractice: 15th / 16th / 18thTotal practice laps: 37Qualifying: 15th / 14th [starts 12th due to penalties ahead]Pit stop laps: 10, 25, 34, 37Result: 10thSummary: Complained of more top-speed problems on Friday despite the speed trap charts seeming to suggest otherwise and failed to follow Sutil into Q3. In the race was running 11th before breaking his front wing in a collision with Vettel and, despite making four stops, that's where he finished on the road. Afterwards he was promoted to 10th after Alguersuari was handed a retrospective penalty for cutting a chicane. Sebastien Buemi - Toro Rosso-FerrariPractice: 18th / 17th / 16thTotal practice laps: 51Qualifying: 14th / 15th [starts 16th due penalty]Pit stop laps: 1, 3, 33, 37Result: 12thSummary: Buemi's weekend got off to a disrupted start when a gearbox problem limited him to just six laps in the wet FP1 and was then outqualified by Alguersuari in Saturday's changeable conditions. He was involved in yet more first-corner contact when another car slit his rear tyre and damaged the diffuser, giving way to a race fighting against a handling imbalance. A series of wet tyre gambles failed to get him higher than 12th.Jaime Alguersuari - Toro Rosso-FerrariPractice: 16th / 14th / 17thTotal practice laps: 59Qualifying: 13th / 13th [starts 11th due to penalties ahead] Pit stop laps: 2, 4, 34Result: 13th [after 20s time penalty]Summary: The Spanish youngster admitted he was enjoying the rain at Spa and qualified a commendable 13th which became a career-high 11th on the grid. He described his adventures on Sunday as the most exciting race of my career, in which he fought back from a unnecessary pit stop for intermediates on lap two to take 10th ahead of Liuzzi on the road. Stewards weren't happy with the way he defended from the Force India driver two laps from home however, when he cut the Bus Stop, and punished him with a 20s penalty.Jarno Trulli - Lotus-CosworthPractice: 21st / 20th / 19thTotal practice laps: 50Qualifying: 18th [starts 15th due to penalties ahead] Pit stop laps: 33Result: 19thSummary: The veteran vented his frustrations at his continuing misfortune after failing to follow Kovalainen into Q2 in the rain-hit first session, criticising di Grassi for not letting him by prior to their contact and then bemoaning the timing of yellow flags on his best lap. Race day was better though as he held 16th prior to the late appearance of the safety car, although he tumbled to 19th on the restart when he spun after putting a rear wheel on a slippery white line.Heikki Kovalainen - Lotus-CosworthPractice: 23rd / 19th / 21stTotal practice laps: 44Qualifying: 16th [starts 13th due to penalties ahead]Pit stop laps: 1, 3, 33Result: 16thSummary: Kovalainen was happy with the performance of the T129 in the wet on Friday and then repeated his efforts from Sepang by taking Lotus into Q2. A catalogue of problems on the opening lap of the race  a poor getaway, broken wing and switch to inters put him on the backfoot early on, but he typically battened down the hatches and later picked up a couple of positions when he was one of the first to this time stop correctly for the inters again in the late shower.Sakon Yamamoto - Hispania-CosworthPractice: 24th / 23rd / 24thTotal practice laps: 52Qualifying: 21st [starts 19th due to penalties ahead]Pit stop laps: 13, 32Result: 20thSummary: The Japanese journeyman was delighted to qualify ahead of three drivers on merit in the tricky Q1 conditions and then a super start in the race meant he ended the chaotic lap in the unusually heady heights of 13th. He naturally fell back afterwards and late on experienced graining on the extreme wet rubber after HRT had anticipated a heavier rain shower than never came.Bruno Senna - Hispania-CosworthPractice: 22nd / 22nd / 20th Total practice laps: 46Qualifying: 20th [starts 18th due to penalties ahead]Pit stop laps: 2, 3Result: retired, lap 5, suspensionSummary: Senna's first experience of the Belgian Grand Prix saw him make the most of the rain in Q1 to achieve his best qualifying result to date. But his race only lasted five laps after his HRT's rear suspension failed, adding to the broken front wing he had picked up on the opening lap which had necessitated a second-lap pit stop and a short-lived gamble on wet tyres.Pedro de la Rosa - Sauber-FerrariPractice: 14th / 8th / 11thTotal practice laps: 59Qualifying: 22nd [starts 24th due to penalty for 9th engine] Pit stop laps: 1, 3, 34, 38Result: 11th Summary: After Sauber had showed solid top-10 pace throughout practice, de la Rosa had high hopes for qualifying so was mightily annoyed the teams' gamble on slick tyres in the drying closing stages of Q1 backfired so spectacularly as both he and Kobayashi crashed out. An engine penalty for a ninth engine hardly made much difference to his already lowly grid slot and from there he fought back well into the points, only to throw away 10th when, struggling on overheating wets, ran into the gravel again three laps from home.Kamui Kobayashi - Sauber-FerrariPractice: 8th / 10th / 10thTotal practice laps: 58Qualifying: 19th [started 17th due to penalties ahead] Pit stop laps: 2, 34Result: 8thSummary: Like his team-mate, Kobayashi dropped it on slicks while battling for a Q2 berth when a pole shootout appearance had seemed inevitable. Not for the first time this season though, the Japanese battled back on race day, getting his mandatory stop out of the way early after a strong first lap, and then shadowing the Mercedes drivers for the remainder of the afternoon to take eighth.Timo Glock - Virgin-CosworthPractice: 19th / 24th / 23rdTotal practice laps: 31Qualifying: 16th / 17th [starts 20th due to penalty]Pit stop laps: 1, 2, 32Result: 18thSummary: The German driver made an inauspicious start to the weekend when he crashed in Friday's second practice session, but followed rival Kovalainen through into Q2 although a later penalty for blocking undid most of his hard work. In the race his avoidance action for the Barrichello/Alonso tangle on lap one only sent him into a collision course with a marker board which broke his VR-01's front wing, while gambles on wet tyres at the start and end of the race failed to pay dividends.  Lucas di Grassi - Virgin-CosworthPractice: 20th / 21st / 22ndTotal practice laps: 60Qualifying: 23rd [starts 22nd due to penalties ahead]Pit stop laps: 33Result: 17th Summary: Hopes of a first Q2 berth were scuppered when he was hit by an agitated Trulli at the start of the first stage, but race day was far more encouraging as his side of the garage made all the correct tyre calls and he finished close to Kovalainen in the battle for the new teams' honours.