Ferrari needed to win at Spa-Francorchamps yesterday to start closing the championship deficit down and the team really made their power advantage count on a track that suited the SF71H as Sebastien Vettel claimed his fifth win of the year and the Scuderia grabbed its first Belgian Grand Prix victory since 2009.
As a result of that controlling win Vettel has closed the gap to Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton in the Drivers’ championship to 17 points although the Scuderia lost a further 5 points in the Constructors’ standings due to Kimi Raikkonen’s retirement after he was hit by the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo at the start. The Finn could have got a great result given the pace of the car, even though he was starting from the third row of the grid.
On the grid Vettel was on the front row in second place while Raikkonen was sixth. The start went off normally, but a McLaren was soon flying through the air: it was Alonso, who had been hit by Hulkenberg. Other cars were also damaged and Raikkonen came on the radio to say he had a right rear puncture, probably picked up after colliding with Ricciardo.
But at this point, all eyes were on the leaders as Vettel immediately got past Hamilton on the Kemmel climb, to take the lead. Immediately after that, the Safety Car came out. The number 7 car pitted to fit the Medium tyres, showing signs of some damage to the floor and bodywork.
Four laps went by before the restart, when Vettel fought off the advances of his pursuers and was able to build a slight lead. However, his team-mate was struggling to drive his damaged car and returned to the pits to check the damage while work was done on the front wing. But it was all in vain and he was soon back to park up in the garage and retire.
The two leaders were lapping at almost identical pace and the two teams watched one another, waiting for the pit stops to begin. Hamilton was the first to come in at half distance, fitting the Softs. Vettel stepped up the pace, prior to pitting. He also went for the yellow tyres and the driver congratulated the team on its perfect work, as he emerged still leading the race by 1.9 seconds.
With 15 laps to the chequered flag, the No. 5 Ferrari led by over 4 seconds and the key would be tyre management, but the battle was far from over.
On lap 35, it was time to lap the backmarkers. There were five laps to go, the gap was now 7 seconds and growing. From there on the run to the finishline was something of a formality as Ferrari went on to claim one of its most dominant race wins of the year and, most importantly, started to edge down the deficit in the title race.
At the end of the race David Sanchez, the head of the aerodynamic engineering, was sent up to the podium to represent the team. “Great job everyone,” said Arrivabene by way of words of thanks.
Maurizio Arrivabene: “That was a fantastic win today, with a great race from Seb and the whole team which, both at the track and back in Maranello, fought back from yesterday’s difficulties in a strong, calm and determined manner, while the car showed all its potential. What happened to Kimi is a real shame and, but for that, we might have had even more to celebrate and the Constructors’ classification would look a bit different. Now, the important thing is to carry on working with determination and humility, without ever giving up. Now we come to Monza and right from Wednesday, we will get the chance to get close to our fans during the event at Darsena di Milano. I am sure that will be able to count on the support of all our tifosi, as the championship goes on, getting more and more interesting. We hope that, come the end of the year, we can give them something to really smile about.”
Sebastian Vettel: “I’m very happy because we had a great race, the car now has proved to be robust on all tracks and this weekend we got a little more power from the new engine, which I think also helped us down the straights. At the start I tried to stay close to Lewis, getting a good exit out of Turn 1 and then taking advantage of the slipstream to get past. After the Safety car pulled out, it was just the other way round, so I looked after the exit of Turn 1 to stay ahead. The first stint was very close, only a couple of seconds between us; but then the guys did a fantastic pit-stop, I could not believe the light had turned green so fast, and that gave our rivals no chance. The second stint was ore about managing the car and the tires for both of us. This is a great win for the whole team and hope in Monza it will be the same, but we need to keep fighting to be always up there.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “I don’t know what happened at the start: the only thing I know is that somebody hit me from behind and straight after that I got a puncture. I had a lot of damage to the rear wing endplate and the floor; at that point I could not go fast and the DRS stayed open all the times, it was hard to remain on track. It was pointless to continue, the damage was too big, so we decided to go back to the garage.”
Photos: Scuderia Ferrari - 2018 FIA Formula 1 World Championship
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