Formula One: Belgian Grand Prix – 1 race, 24 different reactions! (Part 3)
Williams
Williams’ Formula One team driver, Nico Hulkenberg complained of the lack of handling of his ride due to a throttle control problem in the early segments of the race. The resultant pit stop saw the engine die in the box and had to be restarted. A lengthy stationary stay saw him lose a lot of places on the track and the rain to contend with. The car was nothing short of a supermarket trolley, with timely spins in the rain and a lack of engine control – A complete struggle!
Rubens Barrichello started his 300th Grand Prix, which ended for just about a good minute. The Brazilian admitted that despite his experience, it was rather tricky to know exactly how wet the track was on the opening lap. The Williams’ driver reflected upon the incident coming into Blainchimont. After overtaking Rosberg and despite touching the brakes quite early, the lack of traction offered by the wet track made it impossible to avoid Fernando Alonso – for which the former Ferrari driver was sorry. It was a sad end to what could have been a promising weekend for the Williams team. Barrichello seems hopeful for the future and concluded on a lighter note, “Despite not having a good outcome in my 300th race, I’m confident we will go well in the 301st!”
Lotus
Heikki Kovalainen deemed a bogged down engine the reason for his slow start and had to activate the anti-stall to compensate. He fell prey to the rain and had to jog back to the pits to replace a damaged front wing. The Lotus team like many other lower end contenders opted to gamble with the intermediates, which backfired as the rain stopped. Another stop for tyres meant losing out on the drivers ahead of him. However, the Fin believed he was able to do the best he could from then and was able to take advantage of the rain at the end, managing to pick up a few places finishing 16th.
It was exciting out there, however, those things are normal for Spa commented a light-hearted Jarno Trulli. The Italian had mixed reviews about his race before the rain. Opting to play it safe in the start, going wide to avoid his team mate and unfortunately was overtaken by a couple of cars. He was also struggling with his car setup; the rear tyres were taking way too much stick. The overheating rubber was weighing him down but thankfully, it was temporary. With performance coming back into his tyres, the former Toyota driver was able to pull away from the guys behind him. The introduction of the safety car undid all his hard work, resultant traffic on the restart along with poor visibility inducing a mistake out the Lotus driver, who took comfort in the thought that they were at least able to bring both cars home in the end.
Virgin
Timo Glock of Virgin F1 concluded that despite doing rather well in qualifying, the race was another page in their bad luck journal. Being bullied at the start and going through a 50 metre board after going wide to avoid the Alonso-Barrichello collision, the rain couldn’t come sooner for the wet tyres to work well. It was a disappointing race and the German driver would not want a black cat to block his way before Monza.
The Brazilian Virgin F1 driver was a lot more positive about the race than his team mate. Lucas di Grassi further complemented the team for getting his tyre strategy spot on. He was a touch worked up about Kovalainen cutting the chicane at turn 5 which is under investigation.
Hispania
Sakon Yamamoto finishing the race at the backend of the 20 drivers that managed to finish the race. The Japanese driver thanked the HRT F1 team for seeing him through a rather tricky race. Yamamoto, despite a reasonable start at the start of the race was another victim of the ‘wet weather tyre gamble’, and struggled to challenge for the latter part of the race.
Bruno Senna, nephew of the late three-time Formula 1 world champion Ayrton Senna, turned out to be one of the earlier casualties of the Belgian Grand Prix when the left-rear suspension of his HRT broke on the sixth lap. The Brazilian claimed that Hispania had possibly the best start of the season which was dampened not only by the rain, but also down to the fact that they were outdone by rear-end competitors Lotus F1 and Virgin.
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