The Belgium Grand Prix is in two weeks, who's watching? Our team (Mercedes McLaren) is leading in the World Championship. It's been a great season so far. Any thoughts on whose going to win the race?

 

Spa is one of my all time favorite tracks and I'm really glad it's still part of the schedule after it's on again, off again struggles recently. I'm pulling for Felipe Massa and hope Ferrari has sorted the recent engine reliability issues. It's great seeing him stick it to Kimi lately as I've never been that big a fan of the Finn and thought him to be overrated. It's also nice the BMWs coming up the performance ladder.

 

Forget BMW look at what Truli has done in the past few races. Toyota is doing well. I think Hamilton is going to get it. I know Spa is a HP track, but I think McLaren has Ferrari beat in the handling and the HP. Sector two is going to be smoking fast. Kimi hasn't shown much for a couple of years. Yeah he won the championship last year, but he didn't really go after it, it just fell into his lap.

 

I don't think Toyota is going to shine at Spa - BMW will do better. I'm not a fan of Japanese cars so I take a bit of perverse joy in watching Honda and Toyota spend ship loads of money to run at the back of the pack for so many years. In an admitedly mean spirited sort of way I find it quite humorous actually. Having said that, I do like Jarno so it is nice to see him proving that he can drive with the best of them.

 

I enjoy competition. I dislike Ferrari. They have dominated this sport for quite some time and now that MS is gone, well they aren't as good as they once were. I was a little upset that massa didn't get more of a penality than he did last weekend in Spain (Which was a beautiful track). Granted I would've thought the penality silly I just feel like if Hamilton had done it he would've had a pass through or at least grid penality for the next race. Remember to stupid penality he and HK got earlier this year in France?

Ok now what was I talking about? Ah yes I welcome Toyota and Honda and whoever else want's to really compete getting to the front.

 

Ferrari leads in manufacturer points...

 

Yeah, by single digits and theres still a lot of racing left. Anything can happen. HK is even performing well.

 

I don't understand despising a team for being so much better than the competition for so long. If you don't agree that a team should be allowed to dominate if it comes up with a better package, under the rules, than everyone else, then maybe NASCAR is a better choice. If one team is faster than the others then the competition complains and the fast guys, the smart guys, are effective penalized for it.

As for penalizing Massa when the team released him a bit early, I'm not a fan of that either. If the team does something stupid the driver shouldn't be handed a penalty for it, the team should be fined or something. Hell, even with McLaren being thrown out of the Constructors Championship last year due to the spying scandal, the drivers were still allowed to compete in the very same cars that cost the team any championship hopes. In fact, if not for the stupid call by the team in China, Hamilton would have scored points in that race and won the title overall. With a car that was effectively banned from the constructors race.

 

F1 racing...now we are talking.

One of my favorite Spa memories is recording a wet qualification session from 2004. What made it so cool was the in car camera views of the guys driving through eu-rouge while hardly being able to see. I think thats the weekend that Villenueve crashed because he just had to take eu-rouge without lifting. I made sure that I saved that session to DVD.

As for a memory a little before my time. What about in 1967 Dan Gurney won his only race in his Gurney Eagle, one of the most beautiful cars in history. That same month he teamed up with A.J. Foyt to win LeMans in the infamous GT40. Not too shabby.

Any thoughts on getting the USGP back in 2009? I'm losing hope as it wasn't on the provisional calendar. I've been to 11 USGPs and I am having withdrawls ( 77, 78, 80 at the glen, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07 at Indy )

BTW, I do believe that Ferrari gets preferential treatment. Although I do unstand that F1 would die without Ferrari ( think Cart without the Indy 500 or baseball without the Yankees ). But, McLaren surly would have had the Valencia win taken away from them had Massa's error been done by Hamilton while leading. I'm sure they would have issued a drive-through penalty or something.

 

I don't despise the team for being good, I choose not to support them because the FIA choose to let them get away with everything while any other team would be screwed. I've already said that if they penalized Massa i would've thought it was a stupid penalty. I honestly believe that if It was Hamilton instead of Massa there would've been either a drive through penalty or a grid penalty for the next race.

Mike I do hope you know I'm not arguing with you. I do have difference in opinion, but isn't that what makes this interesting.

Oh and Imabenz welcome to the chat, hopefully we can get some more racing threads in this section of the forum. It seems that people only feel they can talk about racing crossfires.

 

Understood 100%

Agreed. I actually a bit surprised that nobody has flamed me yet for calling Kimi overrated. I've just never thought all that highly of the guy.

As for me being a huge Ferrari fan, I must say I was hugely disappointed that Lewis did not win the title last year and still can't believe the team left him out in the rain in China with tires that were so far gone he was lapping almost 7 seconds a lap slower than his main rivals. You'd think the collective minds of the mighty McLaren organization would have known better.

Hey, did you see the pace of the BMWs in testing at Monza this week? Put those things on a low downforce, high speed track and they shine. Spa and Monza are up next - should be fun.

 

Go Ferrari and World Champion Kimi

 

I'm really looking forward to Spa after the rather disappointing Valencia race - it had all the ingredients of a great race but somehow it all fell a bit flat I do think the decision not to apply any sort of penalty during the race on Ferrari/Massa was an odd one, I'm sure if it had been another team they would have had a drive through there and then Having said that, Mass was in a class of his own and deserved to win.

Spa is probably my favorite track, I was there last year for the GP and the atmosphere was fantastic with 'Hamilton Fever' in full swing I shall be back back there early next year for a thrash round the track - can't wait to blast the Crossfire up through Eau Rouge at full tilt

 

You are only allowed to do that if you bring us back pictures and video.

 

You can take that as a definite I have a vid of me driving the Monaco GP circuit - but its pretty boring since it was in rush hour traffic on the first day of the French holidays Lap was about 30 mins LOL!

 

Qualifying is tomorrow, any predictions? I here it's a good chance of rain for the qualifying and race.

 

I feel that it is nice info about Belgian Grand Prix but i need to know more if you want that visit below website


Belgian Grand Prix 2011

 

Are you freakin' kidding me??? I see all kinds of crazy spammers with our corporate forum, but a spammer promoting some sort of Grand Prix tours company? That's a new one on me.

But ban the spammer!!!

 

I never read the spam but I hope it's not a coach trip being offered.
PS
I guess the spammer here is a Grand Prik.