Adam Cooper F1

Adrian Sutil has blamed Pastor Maldonado for the “stupid” move that saw the pair make contact at the Spa chicane.

Sutil was able to continue unharmed, but the Williams driver then slammed hard into Paul Di Resta, knocking the Force India driver out of the race. Maldonado later received a stop and go penalty from the stewards.

“You know with certain drivers you have to be a bit more cautious and careful,” Sutil told this writer. “Maldonado hit my left rear tyre, and I wasn’t sure if it was still OK. I think what he was trying to do was absolutely stupid. I don’t know, what can you say?

“If you are absolutely on the outside and there are three cars on the inside and you want to go inside to the pits, well you can’t. You have to sometimes think a little bit earlier. He almost took me out of the race, he took Paul out of the race, and Gutierrez was also close to getting out of the race.”

Meanwhile Di Resta said: “I don’t see myself at fault in any way, shape or form on that one. He wasn’t going to make the cone in the pits so I don’t know what he was trying to do, I don’t know where he was going.”

Lewis Hamilton was in something of a low key mood after the race at Spa having dropped from pole to third place – and  lost crucial points to both Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso in the title fight.

On the plus side he has moved ahead of Kimi Raikkonen. Nevertheless Hamilton clearly wasn’t happy about being overtaken first by Vettel and then Alonso. He didn’t have the speed with which to hold on to either of his rivals, just a few weeks after his impressive performance in Hungary.

“It’s difficult when people pull away from you, there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Hamilton. “I feel happy that we’ve extended our lead ahead of Ferrari, collectively me and Nico, and also I’m up to third. I’ve come and done what I planned to do, but it’s difficult when he pulls away at the rate he sometimes pulls away.”

Hamilton said that he’d struggled for straight line speed with the Spa aero package, and fears more of the same at Monza.

“It’s difficult to understand what we’ve missed out, but I think the guys will work over the next few days to try and understand where we were slower. But Eau Rouge was particularly slow for us, and down the straights. Maybe we’ll be able to unlock something before the next race, but if not then I’m hoping that Singapore onwards we’ll be much stronger.

“They’re more windy circuits, more high downforce circuits. When you come to these two circuits, this one and the next one, you get a downforce package and you’re kind of stuck with it. It either has or hasn’t worked. We may improve in the next race, or we may be in the same position.

“We won’t be any worse, that’s for sure. From then onwards we’ll have the higher downforce package that we had in the previous races, but it should be hopefully improved again. So I’m hoping that we’ll be more competitive from then on.”

Meanwhile regarding Vettel’s lead in the championship he said: “It’s a big, big gap, it’s a huge gap, it’s going to be tough to close that. I’m going to keep pushing.

“It’s going to be very, very tough, undoubtedly. He’s had a phenomenal car for a long, long time, and it still is phenomenally quick and does the job, so it’s a perfect package.

“We’ve had some really strong races but we’ve been there or thereabouts and competing with them, and we have finished ahead of them in the past, so it doesn’t meant that we can’t do that in the next races. But it’s getting closer and closer to the point where we really need to be finishing ahead every single time to close that gap.”

Worryingly for rivals Christian Horner says that Red Bull hadn’t expected Sebastian Vettel’s victory at Spa on Sunday to be so straightforward.

Despite that he insists that it’s still way too early to get too complacent about the German’s championship hopes.

“It’s still a long, long way to go,” said the team boss. “It’s great to start the second half of the season with a victory. But as we can see the form moves around from race to race and circuit to circuit, and there’s still an awfully long way to go. It was a really dominant win this afternoon, which was unexpected really.

“This race and the next one we were expecting to be our Achilles heel, as these tracks haven’t been historically very strong circuits for us, but to have the performance that we did today was very satisfying with Sebastian.”

Horner cautions that fortune could still conspire against Vettel.

“I think his confidence is obviously high, he’s driving extremely well. He’s put in a faultless performance this afternoon. But things can change very quickly, and we saw that last year. He managed to turn it around on Fernando. There’s still a long way to go, a lot of racing still to be done, and our approach is just to take it a step at a time and get the best out of each weekend that we possibly can.

“Nothing’s impossible. Twenty five points for a victory, a couple of DNFs and somebody puts a run together, you can be on the back foot again. We’ve put ourselves into a strong position. Our focus is very much on we’ll move from Spa now to Monza, and from there on to the international races. We’ll just take it one step at a time.”

Meanwhile Horner said that Vettel had got it just right when he made his crucial first lap pass on Lewis Hamilton in Belgium.

“I think Sebastian had worked it out in his own mind. He didn’t have a great start, but he went to the left hand side and focussed very much on getting a clean exit out of La Source, and a good run through Eau Rouge.

“I think with the gearing that we ran if he hadn’t made the pass at that point it would have been very difficult for him to overtake Lewis, so he used his KERS where he needed to, and timed it right, and grabbed his one opportunity. As soon as he’d made his pass around the outside he then just got his head down and got on with it.

“He had tremendous pace in the early laps, and of course what we don’t know with the modern way of racing in F1 is how high or severe the degradation is going to be. You can burn up your tyres quite quickly and then see heavy degradation in later laps.

“It was a matter then of making sure that we eked out a gap, but also made sure that we had the range with the tyres as well. So it’s that fine balance between how hard you push or how much do you protect your tyres to get the range. I think we just about managed to get the balance right with that.”

Ferrari’s Stefano Domenicali says that he hopes to confirm Sauber’s 2014 customer powertrain deal in the near future.

While there has never been any question of Sauber going anywhere else the deal has not been confirmed due to obvious commercial reasons, given the massive financial commitment the Swiss team will have to make when it signs a multi-year deal.

It’s a similar situation with Lotus, whose expected Renault deal has yet to be inked.

“The thing is progressing very well,” said Domenicali. “We want to keep working with Sauber, as you know, hopefully very soon we will clarify formally the situation with them. That’s the intention.” Asked if it would be by Monza, he added: “I hope so.”

Meanwhile Domenicali made light of the fact that Mercedes and Renault have undertaken some PR by revealing details of their 2014 powertrains, while Ferrari has not.

“On the engine side we believe that what has been put out from our competitor [Renault] is an interesting marketing exercise, but I can guarantee to you that the pictures I have seen are not the engine that will be in the cars next year. If you want we can bet! I’m joking, but you understand what I want to say.

“So we are going ahead with our programme. It’s tight for everyone. From the engineering point of view it’s a really great challenge, and so that is the approach that Maranello, our people, are having in front of this project.”

Stefano Domenicali says that Ferrari has to keep pushing to improve the F138 in order to maintain its championship challenge.

Asked if it was important to appease Fernando Alonso with an upturn in form in Belgium, Domenicali said it was a boost for the whole team.

“I think it was important not only for Fernando, who deserved a quick car, but also for the team, because they are working very hard to make sure that we are able to fight up to the end for the championship,” he said. “We had a very bad July for many reasons, but I’m very pleased to see we are back on track, but it’s not enough.

“We need another step with regard to the performance of the car, and this is what I’m expecting from my people, and this is what honestly at home everyone is trying to do as best as they can. This is really the target that we have.

“For us it’s important to keep back again on this trace, let’s say, of improving the car. We saw Red Bull has for sure improved, and we need to stay there, because we can beat them by improving the car better than them, and being there if an opportunity can come, because they may have a problem. Don’t forget last year.”

Domencali said the improvement in form was not just down to upgrades introduced for low downforce Spa: “Some of them will carry through for the next races, some others were obviously focussed with the package for this race, but at least I’m pleased to see that the car was back to a normal improvement, in terms of performance, that was the most important thing for us.”

Meanwhile Domenicali confirmed that the gap between Alonso and leader Vettel opened up in the final stint because the Spaniard backed off to save the car.

“At a certain point, because the gap was always there around 10-11 seconds, and in our view there was nothing to gain and there was nothing to protect from behind we just considered not to destroy the rhythm and preserve car in order to avoid any possible damages. We saw that Vettel was still pushing, and it was a little bit strange from our perspective, but we were let’s say just managing the position.”

Greenpeace protestors had a pretty good view of the race

Greenpeace launched a carefully co-ordinated attack on race sponsor Shell at the Belgian GP – and the organisation even managed to invade the podium ceremony.

Protestors managed to get on top of the main grandstand before the start, with four of them abseiling down to eventually reveal a 20m wide banner that read ‘Arctic Oil? Shell No!.’ The protestors remained in place, dangling from the roof of the grandstand, until after the race.

Another team struck on a Shell advertising sign at the top of Eau Rouge, while paragliders flew overhead.

Incredibly during the national anthems after the race two banners rose up seemingly from nowhere on the metal fence at the front of the podium, operated by remote control. They were hurriedly removed by Alex Molina, the man responsible for the podium ceremony, while the TV director focussed in on Vettel.

Meanwhile two protestors tried to interrupt the ceremony, with one of them abseiling down on the left while security tried to pull her back up. She was removed by security after the ceremony concluded. The pair had purchased VIP Paddock Club passes at a cost of several thousand euros.

The drivers had no idea what was happening, or why there was booing from the crowd under the podium.

Greenpeace later confirmed that the podium banners had been installed “several weeks ago,” and said that 35 people were involved in the action.

Clearly today’s events will lead to more stringent security measures in the future…

Sebastian Vettel took a step closer to his fourth World Championship title by scoring a dominant win in Belgium.

Vettel dragged past pole man Lewis Hamilton on the straight after Eau Rouge on the first lap, and thereafter was never under threat. He now has a 46 point advantage over his nearest rival, Fernando Alonso.

“Obviously very difficult around here to plan your start because first of all you need to have a good launch off the line and then there’s a long straight coming,” he said. “I tried my best to line up behind Lewis and basically benefit from a massive tow through Eau Rouge.

“I think especially in the opening lap when the tyres are not yet completely there and the fuel tank is full, Obviously the cars are quite heavy up the hill and produce a lot of drag and I was able, in the tow, to make up a lot of speed, and when I got side by side I had a lot of advantage over Lewis and was able to get straight ahead.

“So, yeah, it worked very well, what I was trying to, let’s say, plan at the exit of turn two. And after that I just tried to settle into the rhythm. I tried to open a gap to be flexible at the first stop and yeah, until the end we had incredible pace. We didn’t expect that.

“We knew, probably, going in that, in the dry, we should be able to beat Mercedes on the track but we knew other cars – Lotus, Ferrari – they looked very competitive in the dry, so in that regard we had massive pace, and could control the race until the end.”

Despite extending his lead Vettel insisted that he wasn’t yet thinking about the World Championship.

“For sure a positive message today, but I’m honestly more happy to win the race today: it’s a fantastic track and especially when the car works well, you don’t want the race to stop. The car is getting lighter and lighter and I was very comfortable at the end on the Primes. The car, as I said, was just a pleasure to drive.

“I didn’t think about the championship or points. Obviously I know the higher up you finish the better it is: ideally ahead of everyone else, which worked today. We’ve had good races here in the past, so it’s nice to have another one, another great memory today. So, that’s what honestly I was focussing on most. For sure, regarding the championship, it’s a bonus.”

Fernando Alonso may have finished a distant second to Sebastian Vettel at Spa, but the Spaniard was pleased to at least be back in the game after some frustrating races in July.

Alonso heads to Ferrari’s home race at Monza 46 points adrift of Vettel, but with 200 still available, he’s not out of the fight.

“I think the weekend was more or less good for us with recovering some feelings that we lost in July with the car especially,” he said. “We were a little bit more competitive – or we felt a little bit more competitive this weekend.

“Not for sure maybe for pole position, but to be in the first four or five positions on the grid, maybe that was possible but yesterday I think we were extremely unlucky with the situation in Q3, with weather and the track: where we were, in the place we were, at the time we were was wrong.

“So, unfortunately some times in these changeable conditions you are lucky, sometimes unlucky. I remember Malaysia very well in Q3, we were in the right place in the right moment, and we were second and third of the grid. Yesterday was a little bit the opposite. So we had to plan a perfect race from the start to the pace of the car, to the strategy and everything worked fine, and we could recover some places and extremely important for the championship also to get some good points again after three races [that were] not so good.”

Alonso said his title hopes are still alive: “Obviously we lost an extra seven points but when they are dominating the weekend, when they do everything better than us and they win the race, they deserve the win and we need to aim for maximum points. Weekends like this one, we need to extract the maximum from the car.

“That is what we did this weekend, all we could in qualifying, all we could in the race. In the race, once we were second we were two to four tenths slower per lap. When you are the second fastest, you deserve to finish second.

“So we just need to congratulate Sebastian, Red Bull and try to get better for Monza, but in terms of the championship, as I said, we came from two fifth places in Hockenheim and Hungary, with a little bit of a not good feeling and not good performance from the car, and today I think we recovered some of the optimism that we lost and I think it was a good weekend for the championship in terms of feeling and in terms of points as well.”