Spa-Francorchamps

The race at Spa this year was indeed a beautiful one. There was action and drama all weekend long. Weather played a major role in qualifying and the effects were carried over to the race.

Spa has always been my favourite GP circuit. I go as far as to gauge the authenticity of F1 based video games by taking a few laps around this circuit (along with Monaco of course). Its not difficult to see why I love it so much. It truly is a driver's track with some of the most amazing corners I've ever seen. Even the location of the track, which winds through a heavily forested area, is breathtaking. It is also a relatively long lap around Spa. All these elements combine to make it the closest thing to the legendary Nurburgring race track that we have in the modern F1 calendar these days.

After an absence from the F1 tour last season, Spa seemed determined to show its worth this year when we returned to it. The racing was spectacular with lots of overtaking and tons of aggression from the drivers. Like Monaco, Spa stands out as a track where drivers are extremely keen to show their potential. A good driver in an average car really does have a chance of competing against an average driver in a good car.

While I'm happy that Michael Schumacher has won his 7th world title, I'm even more thrilled that Kimi Raikkonen was able to take his first victory of the season. He well and truly deserves it. Having started in 10th place, due to a mistake at the end of his qualifying lap in the rain, Raikkonen made up several places with an aggressive drive off the line. He took the risk in to the first corner and was nearly taken out of the race. He sustained minor damage but was still able to show amazing speed throughout the race. He did, in fact, set the fastest lap towards the end of the afternoon.

One of the most memorable moments of the day for me was Felipe Massa charging down to Eau Rogue alongside Montoya and neither of the drivers willing to give way. Massa held his nerve though and it was Montoya who eventually backed off and let Massa through. A mind-blowing spectacle.

There are 2 other drivers that I feel I have to mention. Both of them were real surprises on race day.

The first was Antonio Pizzonia. I've never been a fan of his. I never rated him well either. He made his situation even worse by crashing a Jaguar S-Type R road-car as a result of a rather amateur piece of driving while doing promotional duties for the Jaguar F1 team.

At Spa, however, partnering Montoya at Williams in the absence of Ralf Schumacher, Pizzonia recovered from a mediocre qualifying grid slot to be in 3rd place ahead of his more established and recognized team mate. He really looked as though he was quite capable of maintaining this position as well, barring any "team tactics" of course. Unfortunately for Pizzonia, he suffered some sort of gearbox failure late in the race during a safety-car period and was forced to retire.

The other driver that I want to discuss is Ricardo Zonta who has replaced Cristiano Da Matta at Toyota. He had the worst qualifying session of all. He went off the track in the first session and then was overly cautious in the second session. This resulted in him qualifying dead last. Amazingly Zonta managed to work his way up to an astonishing 4th place before he too became a victim of car failure when his Toyota engine decided that it would go no further.

All in all, a great race weekend then. The signs are there that, given good reliability, McLaren is finally extremely competitive. We've always known that Raikkonen is a class act and the combination should prove to be very entertaining for the remainder of the season. Yes, I know that the championship fight is over, but from the start of the season most of us already knew what the outcome was going to be. As race fans I feel that we should no longer look at the season as a whole. We should rather concentrate on one race at a time and enjoy or dislike each race weekend for what it turns out to be. In an F1 world dominated by Ferrari, it is the only way to stay interested and to stay sane. That is, of course, until the day someone finally topples Ferrari from their throne ...