F1 2012 - Mercedes AMG F1 Belgium Grand Prix Results - Schumacher finishes 7th and Rosberg 11th

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It was a crazy start and they were all lucky especially Alonso to get out unharmed. Great race though. I loved the Schumi-Raikonnen fight. Shame for MS though he was driving a great race.

Mercedes AMG F1 entered Spa struggling, just like they left Hungary. They were unable to run on Friday because of the torrential rain, which hurt them during qualifying and saw them outside of the top 10. Come race day, Michael on his 300th grand prix was able to finish in 7th place with an ailing car after he lost 6th gear with 10 laps to go. Rosberg fought back from 23rd to finish a respectable 11th place.

The start of the race saw a horrible accident caused by Lotus' Romain Grosjean that took out Championship leader Alonso, Hamilton, and Perez at turn one. Alonso was slow to get out of the car, luckily no one was unharmed, but Grosjean was given a one race ban after the race. The crash allowed Schumacher to jump up to 5th place and challenge for a podium position. Early on, he passed both Mercedes Force India cars and hold on to 3rd place before the first pit stop stint. As Schumacher's tires began to fade, Raikkonen began to make his move, He was no match for the Mercedes top speed on the straight and instead choose to pass him after the first corner. It was unclear when Schumacher lost 6th gear as he looked very slow when Raikkonen passed him and was immediately challenged by Hulkenburg. 2 laps later and with 10 laps to go Schumacher pitted for new tires. That saw him emerged 7th were he finished.

Nico Rosberg tried to do a one stop strategy and saw him as high as 8th place, with his tires quickly fading, he had to pit for a third set of tires with 8 laps to go and finished in 11th just outside the points.

Full Race Results

After 44 of 44 laps

Position	Driver		Team
Fastest lap: B Senna 1:52.822 on lap 43
1	Great Britain	J Button	McLaren
2	Germany	S Vettel	Red Bull
3	Finland	K Raikkonen	Lotus
4	Germany	N Hulkenberg	Force India
5	Brazil	F Massa	Ferrari
6	Australia	M Webber	Red Bull
7	Germany	M Schumacher	Mercedes
8	France	J Vergne	Toro Rosso
9	Australia	D Ricciardo	Toro Rosso
10	Great Britain	P Di Resta	Force India
11	Germany	N Rosberg	Mercedes
12	Brazil	B Senna	Williams
13	Japan	K Kobayashi	Sauber
14	Russian Federation	V Petrov	Caterham
15	Germany	T Glock	Marussia
16	France	C Pic	Marussia
17	Finland	H Kovalainen	Caterham
18	Spain	P de la Rosa	HRT
19	India	N Karthikeyan	HRT
20	Venezuela	P Maldonado (ret.)	Williams
21	Mexico	S Perez (ret.)	Sauber
22	Spain	F Alonso	Ferrari
23	Great Britain	L Hamilton	McLaren
24	France	R Grosjean	Lotus

Nico Rosberg Felt that it has been an

“eventful but disappointing weekend for us, and it’s a shame to have finished just one place outside of the points today.
Without the gearbox change and penalty, I probably could have scored some decent points this weekend.

I had a good start today and moved up ten positions into the midfield. We were running a one-stop-strategy because I needed to take the risk to move up but it didn’t work out and we had to come in again quite late on.

Now I’m looking forward to Monza and we will push hard for a better result there next weekend.

Michael Schumacher quite enjoyed his 300th race

“it was good fun out there with all the battles. In the end, you have to be realistic, and getting into the points from where I started is not too bad, even if you obviously hope for more when I was second at one stage. But then, it was more than we had expected.

It looked pretty reasonable at the start, and we were following our one-stop strategy. In the end though, it did not quite work out so we decided to go for fresh tyres and attack with them.

If we had not done that, I might have ended up further back. But then I lost sixth gear and there was no way to attack. We will now have to do that next week in Monza.”

Ross Brawn:

“It was a very exciting race for Michael, and a great demonstration of his skills in his 300th Grand Prix. Unfortunately we didn’t quite have a quick enough car today to be pushing for the podium. Michael also had a problem with his gearbox towards the end which prevented him from challenging after his second stop.

Nico made a strong effort to get into the points and almost succeeded. However with a lack of dry running, and the car not quite set up as he wanted, that was always going to be tough. We will look ahead now to Monza and keep working hard to improve our performance.”

For Norbert Haug

“two-thirds of the race looked quite promising for Michael who drove a great race on the occasion of his 300th Grand Prix. The plan was to do a one-stop strategy which we then switched to two stops. Michael was in third with 10 laps to go, however the trio behind him were able to go much quicker with fresh tyres than Michael could on his set of primes which were already 26 laps old.

He then lost sixth gear, so seventh was the result we could achieve today, and Michael showed some great manoeuvres throughout the race. Nico started 23rd and finished 11th - also for him more was not possible with our current technical package. We now are looking forward to the Italian Grand Prix next week at Monza.

Thank you Scourge, well done as always.

Thanks for the info!

Concerning the collision at the start, the stewards judged Grosjean will get a 1 race ban.

Lotus’s Romain Grosjean has been given a one-race ban after the stewards at Spa-Francorchamps judged him to be responsible for causing the first-corner accident at the start of Sunday’s 2012 Formula 1 Shell Belgian Grand Prix.

The ban means Grosjean will miss next weekend’s Italian event, which takes place at Monza from September 7-9. He has also been fined 50,000 Euros.

“The stewards regard this incident as an extremely serious breach of the regulations which had the potential to cause injury to others," said a statement released by the FIA. “It eliminated leading championship contenders from the race.

"The stewards note the team conceded the action of the driver was an extremely serious mistake and an error of judgement. Neither the team nor the driver made any submission in mitigation of penalty.”

On another note:
Pastor Maldonado has been given two five-place grid penalties for Monza for a jumped start and causing a collision with Timo Glock.
This is the 10th (?)race out of 12 in which Pastor Maldonado makes contact with another driver. Fortunately this starts to get noticed and he starts receiving more and more penalties for this. He already had a 3 place penalty on the starting grid for blocking during qualifying.

Man they are strict on wrecks in F1.

Originally Posted by DavidV

This was again an awesome race where Button lead from start to finish.
It all started when Grosjean started a accident which took out Alonso, Perez, Hamilton and himself, and damaged Kobayashi's car.
Further in the race Kimi had an incredible pass on Schumacher in au Rouge.
Really close racing with a lot of great passes.
Pitty Mercedes could not make the 1 stop strategy stick on both their cars.
And as MS lost 6th gear in the end there was no way he could finish higher then 7th on fresh tires.

That was probably one of the nicest passes I've seen in a long time. Took some HUGE balls to stick his nose down the inside of Schumacher going into Au Rouge and I'm pretty sure there are only a handful of guys in F1 right now like Shumacher who have the experience to not take out the passing car yet allow for a clean overtaking. I'd be willing to bet that if Kimi had tried that same pass on Grosjean it would have ended up with both of them in the wall - hard.
Amazing race counting the minutes till Monza.

Originally Posted by Sticky

Man they are strict on wrecks in F1.

They HAVE to be...and they are sending some very loud messages to the rookies that taking out the leaders is a big no no.

Originally Posted by Sticky

Man they are strict on wrecks in F1.

The have to be, Alonso was lucky to leave the race with just a little bump on his head. This was Grosjean's 7th first lap incident this year and not to mention Maldonado had a 9 race ban back when he was in Formula Renault. They needed to send a clear message to the young drivers. F1 has been very lucky to not have a tragedy on it hands since Senna back in 94.

Originally Posted by LZH

They HAVE to be...and they are sending some very loud messages to the rookies that taking out the leaders is a big no no.

I think FIA was wrong on the wording of the penalty. It seems like the are putting more emphasis on the Champion drivers' lives than the young guys at the back