2012 Belgian GP

How appropriate that this year's Grand Prix occurred at the end of my travelogue on Belgium!  And that Speed TV would air a "sidebar" program on Dan Gurney's 1967 win in his Eagle!  Heady stuff for an Ancien.

Dan Gurney demo-ing his 1967 Belgian Grand Prix winner at Spa (exiting Eau Rouge) on the 35th anniversary of his victory.  This segment of the course is way more steeply downhill and uphill than it looks in this photograph.  Pilote was reminded/learned of a couple of things in the Speed TV program about this car.  It was designed by Len Terry (ex-Lotus).  All those rivets on the tub were there because magnesium sheet metal is impossible to weld and hard to bend.  Gurney had so many DNF's in this car because the crankcase of the V-12 was long, which interfered with proper oil scavenging by the dry-sump system, which resulted in oil pressure fluctuation.  For want of a nail...

Of course I watched practice, qualifying, and the race.  As posted before, I always watch Monaco and Spa-Francorchamps.  Both go back to the 1920's.  And, although the Spa and Monaco courses have changed over the years, their essential character has not.

Antonio Ascari, winner of the first Belgian Grand Prix, in 1925, entering Eau Rouge in his Alfa Romeo P-2.  The dirt roads were paved in the 1930's.  With the exception of one race in the 1960's and a couple when it was closed to GP events in the 1970's, all Belgian Grands Prix have been run at Spa.

Approriately, it poured during Friday's practice.  Spa wouldn't be Spa without rain.  Despite the weather, drivers made made data collection laps.  What useful data can be obtained in 2-3 laps, sliding around at 7/10's?  But I cheer when it rains at Spa (or any road course).  Spa separates the brilliant from the merely great; rain separates them even more.  Lotus's new "passive" drag reduction system is an interesting technical development.  It was surprising to be reminded in qualifying that Fernando Alonso has not won at Spa.  He may not have as much natural talent as Vettel and Hamilton in terms of pure speed, but he has better race craft.  Because of the rain, and because most teams had trick new parts to try, nobody had their set-up dialed in.  The starting grid was as mixed up as most of this season's races have been.

A pile-up at La Source usually signals a bum race at Spa, and that's what we got.  "My" boy Romain Grosjean took took out half a dozen cars, including himself.  Alas, two others were Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso.  This is the second time Grosjean has wrecked Hamilton at Spa.  I may have to reconsider my fanship, his aviator sunglasses to the contrary notwithstanding.  The pile-up gave Jensen Button a free-ride, one pit-stop, victory.  Vettel also drove a one-stopper to 2nd place from 12th on the grid, showing some superb car-control when he and Michael Schumacher arrived at pit-entry at the same time and his instruction from Red Bull was "do the opposite of Schumacher."  Kimi Raikkonen's Lotus let him down (not up to pace): he should have come a strong 2nd.  But his outside pass on Schumacher in Eau Rouge will be in the highlight reels for years.

I wish Porsche had not forced John Wyer to fire David Hobbs before the 1970 season.  (Hobbs over-revved his 917 in a winter test, blowing the engine.)  Hobbs understands Spa and drove Old Spa at the sharp end of the 1000 kilometer races there in Wyer's Ford GT 40's.  I would love to know what he could have done with a Porsche 917 there.