As the 2014 F1 season goes into its second season, will Mercedes AMG Petronas be able to continue their excellent vain of form in Belgium? Despite their almost total dominance for the first few months of the season, the first half of F1 2014 ended with Daniel Ricciardo getting his second career win in Hungary; he is the only non-Mercedes driver to win a race this season. As it stands Nico Rosberg is eleven points ahead of Lewis Hamilton in the Drivers’ World Championship, with the two being the only drivers left with a realistic chance of winning the title. Will there be a Mercedes Belgian GP win for the first time and who out of the two Championship heavyweights will finish above whom?
Rumour has it that Lewis Hamilton has never been more raring to go before. Hamilton’s friends have suggested that he has returned from holiday in Colorado more focused than ever. The next six weeks present perhaps the four key races in the title race: Spa, which starts with Practice later today; Italy, where Lewis won in 2012; Singapore, where Hamilton won in 2009 but has retired twice; and Japan, where he won in his debut season but has only managed one podium since. Hamilton needs two Mercedes one-twos in his favour to overtake Rosberg- if he finishes first and Rosberg ends up in fourth he moves ahead- and will be looking to dominate the rest of the season, regain the Championship lead as quickly as possible and build a lead as he marches towards his second Drivers’ Championship.
As for Rosberg, he’s revealed that he’s “learned” from Hungary regarding the huge team-orders mess which occurred last month, and seemed to be in a good mood in the press conference yesterday as he revealed that if he’s on pole, he keeps the underwear he wore in Qualifying and doesn’t allow for it to be washed (nice to know, Nico). Why Rosberg felt the need to reveal his indusial practices (indusia: Latin word for underwear, be interesting to see if that word catches on as it serves a useful purpose), or why he feels the need not to change his underwear between Qualifying and the race proper- surely he’d be uncomfortable travelling at 200mph in his dirty laundry?- I’ll never know, but perhaps Nico is trying to divert the attention of the media from the tension which must still be around in the Mercedes garage, as well as his preparation for the title dogfight.
Rosberg must consolidate his eleven point lead by continually finishing above Hamilton and, should he not be able to, as close to his teammate and rival as possible; which is obvious, but he must focus on keeping his cool and not let anything slip in the “mind-games” battle which always seems to become such a huge matter in the press whenever a sporting rivalry occurs.
How is the race looking for Mercedes?
As always, it seems that the Mercedes drivers will be the favourites going into Spa, but there will be other teams and drivers capable of challenging them. Perhaps the most likely is Williams. Confidence is high in the Oxfordshire-based team’s camp and rightly so; Valtteri Bottas in particular has picked up some excellent results already this season. However, Williams are yet to pick up a win this year and things are looking even better for them in this half of the season, particularly at Spa; the Belgian race track suits Williams brilliantly. Don’t take it from me, take it from the Williams boss himself:
“The power sensitivity at Spa is very high and every horsepower you have is worth more here than at other tracks, but the drag sensitivity is also very high. And we know our car is very strong in those areas.
“Additionally, somewhere like Spa can make it hard to turn on the harder [tyre] compounds, and I think our car can do that – especially when it’s a front-end problem. The middle sector is something we will have to work on throughout the weekend, and in qualifying we will need to have the tyres switched on for that sector. There is also always a chance for rain in Spa, so we have to be conscious of this throughout the weekend.”
Hamilton and Rosberg have a near invincible team helping them both and it seems that this title race will be another one which goes right down to the wire- Hamilton himself mentioned that this title race has been even more tense than 2008- and there will be plenty of twists and turns and other tired cliché-worthy events going on for the remainder of the season.
Who will win the 2014 FIA Drivers’ World Championship? In terms of the nearer future, who will win the 2014 Belgian GP? Don’t ask me, I’m not going to risk making a finite prediction as I’ll almost definitely get it wrong and look rather silly. All I’ll say is that cars will be driven, Mercedes cars will probably do rather well and it will take an almighty effort from the non-Mercedes teams who want to win races this season to do so.
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