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[Hammer278]

God, I loved these cars!!! Nothing without a fantastic engine explosion by Panis or Villeneuve!

Yep. Those days before McLarens silly chrome livery was true F1 where limits of technology was explored and crossed in every race weekend.

[Frontrunner]

Pouhon is the best corner at Spa these days.]

Yep, it does seem to be that way. All the drivers talk more about Pouhon and Eau Rouge is left in the shadow a bit and you can sort of see why a bit when you play it on codemasters, Pouhon is a awesome corner with a good challenge to it and when you get it right it feels really good where Eau Rouge missing that a bit. BUT it is only a video game so what am I to judge.

To me Spa would be one of those tracks that would give you satisfaction everytime you drive a lap around it. Hopefully Spa stays on the F1 calender forever

Really looking forward to this race, not only because it is Spa but also because of the long break. It has felt like 2 months ago when the last GP happened.

[lodge89]

For me

Raikkonen
Vettel
Hamilton

This will be Alonso's first dnf this season.

[spankyham]

My prediction is that this thread will be merged with the main Spa thread

[geetface9]

My prediction is that this thread will be merged with the main Spa thread

[stonemonkey]

Gonna be another tough one for the poll game, how much longer can my luck keep going?

[geetface9]

I reallllllllllllllllly hope webber wins this year. He's been in 2nd the last two years in a row. It's time for the ol' boy to do one better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[andrew]

He'd be better of aiming for a hat trick of 2nd's!

[Hammer278]

I reallllllllllllllllly hope webber wins this year. He's been in 2nd the last two years in a row. It's time for the ol' boy to do one better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No worries, he will be on the podium behind Lewis and Kimi respectively.

[What's Burning?]

ESPNF1; Adrian Newey admits that the banning of the exhaust blown diffuser is hurting Red Bull's competitiveness this season.

Having pioneered the concept throughout the 2010 and 2011 seasons, the FIA outlawed diffuser blowing for this year. With Sebastian Vettel having secured a dominant world championship victory last season, neither Red Bull driver currently tops the standings as its advantage has all but disappeared, and Newey told Autosport that the regulation change had affected Red Bull more than the other teams.

"It's pretty much as we feared before the season started," Newey said. "Having explored exhaust blowing technology quite heavily for two seasons and then having that taken away together with other changes like the front wing flexibility [test rules], hurt us quite a lot. Probably more than other people because we had been exploiting it for longer. It has taken a while to try to understand what we need to do and to recover."

It appears that Red Bull will spend some of the time before the Belgian Grand Prix working on how to make the car perform under the new engine regulations, with Newey revealing it was yet to make changes following the engine-mapping clampdown.

"We've been working with Renault and were suddenly faced with a clarification that was a different interpretation to what we thought we were operating to. That's where we are and we've got to go back and have a fresh look."

Interesting article but what caught my attention was the bold part... last year they passed every front wing test. What happened this year in scrutineering that the test has caught up with the RB front wing abuse of last year?

[andrew]

Oh look! Innovation! Ban it!

That's how F1 rolls these days.

[LRW]

Oh look! Innovation! Ban it!

That's how F1 rolls these days.

Oh look!! Broken record!!

[andrew]

It's true though.

Look at the f-duct. Nice bit of innovation and guess what? It got banned.

[atommo]

I'm going to be watching out for Marussias and Caterhams. They both have potential and it will be interesting to see if they've developed their cars over the break, and if they have, will they fare any better. Anyway, there might be some crazy scenario where all the Ferraris, Red bulls and Mclarens break down giving the smaller teams a chance at getting a good set of points [Even if it is unlikely, there is still a chance albeit small. Anyway, I don't think people were expecting Micheal Schumacher to get 3rd place in Valencia!][then again he has been doing very well for a few of the last races in qualifying]

[LewEngBridewell]

Anyway, there might be some crazy scenario where all the Ferraris, Red bulls and Mclarens break down giving the smaller teams a chance at getting a good set of points

Given the stunning reliability we see these days, even compared to the early 2000s, that would be a miracle!