Grand Prix thread Not606 2016 Belgium Grand Prix Chat and Predictions

Countdown is on for the season to get back underway! It will have been three weeks since we had a race by Sunday. Will Lewis be taking his penalties? Is this a sure win for Nico? Can anyone else muscle in on Mercedes after the break?

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Location: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Francorchamps, Stavelot.
Capacity: 70,000
FIA Grade: 1
Major events:
FIA Formula One
Belgian Grand Prix
Blancpain Endurance Series
Spa 24 Hours
World Endurance Championship
6 Hours of Spa
Spa-Classic
Grand Prix circuit: 2007-Present
Length: 7.004 km (4.352 mi)
Turns: 20
Most wins Grand Prix (drivers):

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Michael Schumacher (6)
Most wins (constructors):

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Ferrari (16)
Times:
FRI 26th AUG P1: 09:00
FRI 26th AUG P2: 13:00
SAT 27th AUG P3: 10:00
SAT 27th AUG Q : 13:00
SUN 28th AUG R : 13:00
*All times are BST*

2015 results:

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Current Championship:

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Predictions Championship:

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I expect Lewis to take a new engine here so will be putting my bet on Nico.

 

New engine is a 10 place pen or a drop to the back of the grid?
Think if he does take it here, which I think he will, then he'll most likely not concentrate too much on one lap pace/quali, he'll most likely spend most of the time in FP1-3 to work on tuning his race pace.
As long as he doesn't get caught up in any trouble at the first turn, think he could bag a top 3-5 place at least..

 

Mercedes say they want to take the new engine at Monza, my vote goes to Lewis to win this.

But for the championship sake I hope he doesn't. I would like to see Nico coming back strong and making a fight of it, I know I'm expecting too much, but anything to drag this season of F1 up and make it a sport again.

 

Prepare the egg for my face but I'm expecting it to go wrong for Nico. A collision with Vettel, just something from trying to hard.

 

Calling it now. Massive first lap pile up when Nico comes to a virtual stop at Eau Rouge trying to defend.

 

word was hamilton would take the pen at italy.

I went for hamilton

i'd not be shocked to see mr rosberg in front in quali and hamilton just win it in the race.

 

Its going to be very likely him take 2 new entire sets. ICE, MGUs the lot.

He will have them put in for practice one, do one lap then come in and get the lot changed again so he has two full engines for res tof season.

he will start dead last and be on podium still in italy i think.

 

The Mercedes PU is due upgrades so I guess that'll be delaying their decision. Then again they have no need to upgrade, other than for testing purposes.

 

Good point, in that case it would make sense to wait until the latest iteration of the PU is available before taking a Grid pen!
Merc being Merc, wouldn't surprise me if they waited until Italy to unleash the new improved PU, to piss off Ferrari, even more in their back yard!
If Hamilton has to use on older engine for Spa, I can't see him getting close to Nico, I'd expect Hamilton's older engine being a good 10-20 HP down on the fresher one in Nico's car..
Think I'll be voting Nico for the win here!

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/formula1/37172485

BBC reporting Lewis may take the penalty here in Belgium.

From a voting point of view, I've set it so people can change their vote right up to 45 mins before the race starts, so if he does end up taking the panalties and you've voted for him, you can still change before the race starts! I normally set the pole to close a few minutes before the race starts but it ended up 45 minutes this week.

 

yeah I've instantly changed to nico as the prediction today reading it.

It seems to me that he will take the penalty early and put two new engines in here so friday we will know 100%

the team must feel something is on its last legs and they have to change. I think they'll take a penalty firday or even 2 penalties... he needs 2 new engines for rest of year.

one goes in and runs then do they run it in then risk changing for P3 and running next one in quali/race??

 

This whole changing the engine twice thing seems somewhat against the spirit of the rules to me...

 

Gone Rosberg, won't back Vettel again.

 

Must admit that if I were Merc I would run 1 new complete PU on Friday and change to another completely new PU on Sat and the race. That would give him a good selection of spares but would mean he wouldn't be able to use any updates Merc did using their remaining tokens (if they have any?) without more penalties.
Also Merc would be 'doing a Honda' and they might be a bit concerned at running 2 new Pu at the same weekend would give them bad publicity. Then again how much bad publicity would they get for PU changes at different races if they were needed?

I do think they will make use of 2 new PU's at Spa.

 

Bad publicity is still publicity. If all the interviews are about Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton's engines they won't care one bit.

 

Yeah, I didn't realise it was an option. It wouldn't surprise me if the FIA hadn't considered it either. Makes sense for Hamilton, on a track where you can overtake start right from the back and probably still make second, and don't compromise any future races.

 

McLaren did it loads last year and it seems the FIA haven't closed the loophole. Or maybe they have and no one in the media has noticed :/

 

We'll find out soon enough, Merc will confirm today if he's gonna take a pen..
They, Merc, have already notified FIA that they've used a number of Tokens, if this is for the expected PU upgrade, would make sense to take the Grid Pen now, obviously changing to the new PU for Rosberg won't result in any Grid Pen.

 

I think if you trigger one set you go to the back. he needs the engine and the mgu and turb and mgu-h yes?

so each of those is 5 additional places after an initial 10 place drop for the first penalty.

thats.. 20 places.

So as the penalties don't carry over it would be madness not to take a double hit on the weekend and have two sets of enginer ready to go.

Anyway... for all the whining we had to endure out of him here we are exactly as expected seeing that the thing is really not a big issue in the end.

this single race will put hamilton back in the same place (if not better) than rosberg!

lets get it done and hope for a good spectator race where he comes thorugh field and entertains the fans by making passes... less talk more racing from them all.