Alvin's Formula One Blog

When it comes to wet conditions in Formula 1, no one does it quite like Lewis Hamilton. The seven-time world champion has made a career of turning chaos into opportunity, and at the 2025 Belgian Grand Prix, he once again reminded the world why he’s considered the best in the rain. Starting from the pit lane after a series of uncharacteristic mistakes and a complete engine change, Lewis defied the odds by storming through the field to finish seventh — a staggering gain of eleven positions in a race where no other driver made up more than three. It wasn’t just a recovery drive. It was a lesson in wet-weather racing, tire strategy, and pure racecraft. Let's break down how Lewis pulled it off and why this performance is yet another testament to his brilliance behind the wheel of a Formula 1 car. A Weekend That Started In Disaster The weekend at Spa-Francorchamps didn’t begin on the right foot for Lewis. In both Friday and Saturday qualifying sessions, the Ferrari driver made rare mista...

This weekend F1 roars back into life after the summer break at the Spa Francorchamps circuit in Belgium one of the heritage jewels in the F1 calendar. With 19 corners on a 7km lap, Spa is the longest track on the calendar and one of the toughest on engines, with two sustained periods of flat out full throttle each lap; from La Source hairpin to Les Combes chicane which is around 25 seconds and then later in the lap the run through Blanchimont to Bus Stop chicane. The first national race of Belgium was held in 1925 at the Spa region's race course, an area of the country that had been associated with motor sport since the very early years of racing. To accommodate Grand Prix motor racing, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps race course was built in 1921 but it was only used for motorcycle racing until 1924. After the 1923 success of the new 24 hours of Le Mans in France, the Spa 24 Hours, a similar 24-hour endurance race, was run at the Spa track. Since inception, Spa-Francorchamp...

The first national race of Belgium was held in 1925 at the Spa region's race course, an area of the country that had been associated with motor sport since the very early years of racing. To accommodate Grand Prix motor racing, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps race course was built in 1921 but it was only used for motorcycle racing until 1924. After the 1923 success of the new 24 hours of Le Mans in France, the Spa 24 Hours, a similar 24-hour endurance race, was run at the Spa track. Since inception, Spa-Francorchamps has been known for its unpredictable weather. At one stage in its history it had rained at the Belgian Grand Prix for twenty years in a row. Frequently drivers confront a part of the course that is clear and bright while another stretch is rainy and slippery. The Belgian Grand Prix was designated the European Grand Prix six times between 1925 and 1973, when this title was an honorary designation given each year to one grand prix race in Europe. It is one of the mo...

Slippery Nico..yeah I know.. A fantastic race, exciting with crazy overtaking up and down especially during the last few laps. If it were not the Rosberg incident, this race would have been perfect. Thanks to Rosberg, there is a slight bitterness in the mouth. Here is the winners vs losers piece by Andrew Davies of PlanetF1. Original article  HERE . Daniel Ricciardo made it two on the trot thanks to Nico Rosberg's one-man campaign at wrecking Mercedes' challenge. Star of the Race Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, 1st With virtually no elements to the Red Bull rear wing, the middle sector of Spa was incredibly tricky to drive. Dan was driving a Monza wing (at the next race, there will be nothing left to take off) around Spa. Maybe the trickiest bit of all was qualifying in the wet on Saturday. As we saw from the onboard footage from Q3, Dan made the most monumental of saves going through Blanchimont to keep all of his car in Belgium. In the race he got a reasonable start a...

The Belgian Grand Prix is an automobile race, part of the Formula One World Championship. The first national race of Belgium was held in 1925 at the Spa region's race course, an area of the country that had been associated with motor sport since the very early years of racing. To accommodate Grand Prix motor racing, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps race course was built in 1921 but it was only used for motorcycle racing until 1924. After the 1923 success of the new 24 hours of Le Mans in France, the Spa 24 Hours, a similar 24-hour endurance race, was run at the Spa track. Since inception, Spa-Francorchamps has been known for its unpredictable weather. At one stage in its history it had rained at the Belgian Grand Prix for twenty years in a row. Frequently drivers confront a part of the course that is clear and bright while another stretch is rainy and slippery. The Belgian Grand Prix was designated the European Grand Prix six times between 1925 and 1973, when this title was a...

The Belgian Grand Prix is an automobile race, part of the Formula One World Championship. The first national race of Belgium was held in 1925 at the Spa region's race course, an area of the country that had been associated with motor sport since the very early years of racing. To accommodate Grand Prix motor racing, the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps race course was built in 1921 but it was only used for motorcycle racing until 1924. After the 1923 success of the new 24 hours of Le Mans in France, the Spa 24 Hours, a similar 24-hour endurance race, was run at the Spa track. Since inception, Spa-Francorchamps has been known for its unpredictable weather. At one stage in its history it had rained at the Belgian Grand Prix for twenty years in a row. Frequently drivers confront a part of the course that is clear and bright while another stretch is rainy and slippery. The Belgian Grand Prix was designated the European Grand Prix six times between 1925 and 1973, when this title was an...

It's been a very quiet and slow 3 weeks into the summer break. We have another week plus to go until the next race in Spa. A fantastic track, one of my favorites and the best on the calendar. For the meantime, here is a ranking of the drivers this season based on performance as done by Keith of F1Fanatic. This list gives ranking from number 22 down to number 6. The top 5 will be published soon. The Formula One field of 2013 features five champions, five rookies and a dozen more drivers vying to come out on top. Separating out the driver’s contribution from the advantage or disadvantage handed to him by their car is always a challenge, but that’s exactly what the Driver Rankings aims to achieve. Drivers 22 to 7 here. The second part of the 2013 half-term driver rankings features the drivers in the lower half of the top ten. Drivers 10 to 6 here. If you enjoyed this posting, please do share it with your network so more people can enjoy it as well. Also, check out my t-shirt des...

Spa and Monza may have a greater percentage of the lap spent at full throttle, but the combination of corners, the relentless flow through the high speed sections and radial turns, esses and hairpins makes Suzuka one of the toughest challenges of the year for F1 engines. Suzuka is above average in terms of power sensitivity, not quite in the top five but not far off. There are long portions of the track where the throttle will be fully open with the engine running at close to maximum revs, for example the 130R corner, a curved straight 1,250m in length that stretches from the exit of turn 14 to the chicane leading onto the pit straight. Drivers will reach nearly 200 mph during this section. The high speed Esses are similar in profile to the Maggotts and Becketts complex at Silverstone ; a flowing sequence of interlinking turns that sees the car change direction rapidly at very high speed. This section is also combined with appreciable changes in pitch. The driver will ent...

The FIA has published a provisional grid for Sunday's race following the penalties dished out to Michael Schumacher, Nico Rosberg, Timo Glock and Sebastien Buemi after qualifying. Pos Driver Team 1. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 2. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 3. Robert Kubica Renault 4. Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 5. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 6. Felipe Massa Ferrari 7. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 8. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 9. Nico Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 10. Fernando Alonso Ferrari 11. Jaime Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 12. Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 13. Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 14. Nico Rosberg Mercedes * 15. Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 16. Sebastien Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari ** 17. Kamui Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 18. Bruno Senna HRT-Coswort...

Wow, it has been months since I wrote. I can't believe how busy I've been. And the 3 week break didn't help either. Finally, it is over and we are back in business. The first race after the break couldn't be at a better track than Spa-Francorchamps. And the first qualifying session after such a long break couldn't get any better as Spa served up an intense qualifying which looked like a race from Q1. This was of course courtesy of the unpredictable weather in the micro-climate of the Ardennes. Everybody was saying how strong Ferrari would be, how tough it would be for Red Bull and how much of an advantage McLaren have with their f-duct on the long straights of Spa. In the end, it turned out pretty mixed. Q1 was chaos as it rained a bit and a couple of spins plus the crash from Petrov which caused a red flag made sure of that. After the session was restarted, it started to rain so everybody was in rush to set a banker lap as they knew how unpredictable Spa can be. T...

What can I say? I was so looking forward to the best track in the world and for McLaren to make some impact and Lewis to score some points. But what happened just a few corners after the start completely ruined it for me. But not all is lost as the race was pretty nail biting with a Force India driven by Fisichella stuck to the Ferrari's ass driven by Raikonnen. Fisichella didn't just get pole yesterday but started the race well and would have won it if not for the safety car in response to the first lap accident. When the safety car came out, it was all over as we knew that Raikonnen would use his KERS to pass Fisi and held on to the lead all the way. But what was surprising was that the Force India car had the pace to maintain a 1 sec gap to the Ferrari all the way. In fact, without that KERS button, Fisi would have overtaken Kimi for the win. That first lap incident was unfortunate. From what I can see from video playback on Youtube here and here and here (some might hav...

Zoom Trulli can run longer than his rivals in the first stint of the Belgian Grand Prix S pa Francorchamps may be a quick circuit but the lack of slow corners means that only 2.25kg of fuel are needed per lap rather than an average of 2.42. With the car and driver weighing in at 605kg combined, it is easy to calculate the fuel levels on board the top ten runners and therefore – adding in the pace laps – the lap number in which they will be forced to make their first stops. Unsurprisingly, the top ten runners are lighter on fuel than those starting outside of the top ten. Indeed those towards the back of the field such as Kazuki Nakajima, Romain Grosjean and Jaime Alguersuari are brimmed full with fuel and on a one stop strategy. Pole-sitter Giancarlo Fisichella is fuelled relatively lightly - as expected - but not as light as fourth placed Rubens Barrichello. Fisichella has 43kg of fuel on board and allowing for the lap to the grid and the parade lap, should be abl...

There couldn't have been a more interesting or perplexing qualifying than this one. I was absolutely confused about it. The whole order of things has been shaken up for reasons still unknown or unbelievable . Some of the reasons to explain it is either lack of downforce or low fuel. we'll have to wait for the weights to be published to get a clearer picture. But for now, Fisichella and Force India are on pole. Yes, you read it right, Force India have scored their first pole ever. Shame for Sutil who got P11, he was outpacing Fisi for much of Friday and Saturday practice. McLaren were fast and stable on Friday and Saturday practice but something happened overnight and they finished in the middle of the pack. Lewis was right when he downplayed their chances at Spa. It seems that they still have not found the downforce they need in fast corners and Spa is full of fast flowing corners. Only the rain could save them now. The Brawns didn't do too well either with only Barriche...

This is my most favorite track in the world. Why? Because it has Eau Rouge and Blanchimont. Eau Rouge is not only fast but it goes down a hill then back up with a chicane thrown in the middle. Blanchimont is a double left hander that is taken flat out. Both these turns are just awesome. Read what the drivers have to say about the magic of Spa . Spa-Francorchamps boasts what is widely regarded as the greatest and most daunting corner in the world: Eau Rouge. Commitment and precision are required in equal measure to take on the climbing right-hander. The vertical wall of concrete challenges the drivers to carry as much speed as possible over the brow and into the 190mph sprint towards Les Combes. A good exit to Eau Rouge will see drivers able to challenge the car ahead at the right hander. Through Eau Rouge the drivers are placed under lateral G forces of more than 5G and compression. It also sees high structural loads placed on the car and engine. Spa is also located in the Ardennes, t...

Monday, 24 August 2009 What are your thoughts coming away from the Valencia weekend? "It was a great weekend and the team ought to be really satisfied with our result. We can't complain, we're up there at the front and we led most of the race - some you win and some you lose. That's motor racing. As I've said before, we don't have the best car just yet, we've still got a lot of work to do but the positive thing is that I genuinely believe we can catch up. Is Vodafone McLaren Mercedes a genuine contender now? "Before the recent upgrades, we'd have been hopeful of getting into the top 10 but now we're regularly hoping for a win or to finish second - and that's a big difference and very encouraging. We're definitely strong again - but we're not fastest. With KERS, we are there or thereabouts but we still lack two or three tenths to the Brawns. Hopefully we can make some further changes to our aerodynamic package - Spa will be ...

Well, as expected it was a boring race . Everything turned out to be a procession as the track doesn't allow the cars to bunch up at certain points for overtaking, all cars were evenly spaced out. The start was as usual the only exciting part of the race. Both McLarens had a good start off the line as did Barichello. Kimi had a good start also, making a few palces but bad news for Button who lost a few places due to being cut by Vettel and his no-risk approach to the race. In the end it was good news for him as he finished 7th, collecting a safe 2 points. Not so for Red Bull , who lost Vettel with another engine failure making it 2 engines in one weekend. Vettel is running out of engines, with 1 engine left for the next 6 races. Does not look good for his championship hopes. I'd say he has no chance now as after the last engine, he will have a 10 place grid penalty everytime he changes engine. Plus, how long can he stretch that last engine? Over 6 races? No way. Webber didn...