Sweet Revenge

After all the off-track fuss that preceded the weekend, it would have been highly appropriate if the Belgian GP had been a classic encounter between Ferrari and McLaren.

Alas, it wasn't to be, and within two or three laps of the start it was clear that the race was going to be somewhat processional at the front.

Spa may be a great track for drivers, and provide fantastic viewing, but I guess we all forgot how dull races there so often are - unless, of course, rain plays a part. Ironically, the three-day test back in July was soaking wet for much of the time, but mid-September brought three days of sunshine, and not a hint of precipitation in the air.

The really frustrating thing is that the 14th race of the season featured ingredients that we have rarely had this year. The four main contenders qualified at the front, they all got away well and thus the group was not infiltrated by a BMW Sauber, and they all ran reliably throughout to fill the top four places.

Incredibly, the only other time they have started and finished first to fourth was at Indianapolis in June - but even then, after a bad start Kimi Raikkonen spent his first stint behind slower cars, and thus wasn't part of the fight.

We've been waiting all year for a race where they all ran nose-to-tail to the first stops and beyond, but alas even though they were all in the right places, it just wasn't to be.

Ferrari was simply quicker, and Raikkonen - whose raw speed is never better expressed than at Spa - was a step ahead of his teammate.

Ferrari's dominance was certainly not evident at the test back in July. As noted it was interrupted by bad weather, and of course it's not always easy to compare times on different days.

But come the end of the test the quickest times over the week, set by Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa, were just 0.085s apart. Nearly two months passed before the race itself. The cars have changed, and the European, Hungarian, Turkish and Italian GPs all demonstrated shifts in the balance of power between the two teams.

Even Friday in Spa didn't present a clear picture, as Kimi was on top in the morning, and Fernando Alonso and Hamilton led the way in the afternoon. Ferrari's preparations certainly weren't helped by an off for Massa right at the start of the morning session.

But everything seemed to change in Ferrari's favour on Saturday. In the morning it was Raikkonen, Massa, Alonso and Hamilton, and oddly enough the result that mattered, in Q3, mirrored that exactly.

In between it wasn't so obvious, as the low fuel Q1 and Q2 orders were somewhat mixed up. There was certainly enough evidence to suggest that it would be close in the final session.

In Q1 Alonso was ahead of Massa by 0.002s, and in Q2 Lewis was 0.062s down on Kimi, margins that suggested that, give or take a lap of fuel, either team could secure the front row.

However, a lot of things can go wrong over the long Spa lap, and perhaps McLaren folk were a touch too confident when fuelling up the cars. In the end, Alonso was still only 0.097s off Raikkonen. And as it turned out, he was on exactly the same fuel level as the Finn, as they both ran to lap 15.

A lap of fuel at Spa is a not insignificant 3.2kgs, and had McLaren been a tad more aggressive, Fernando might have stolen pole.

The other key point of qualifying was that Raikkonen got ahead of Massa, who has performed so well on Saturdays this year. In the end it was pretty close - the Brazilian admitted to losing time at the final chicane, and yet was just 0.015s behind. The extra lap of fuel he was carrying more than accounted for that.

Pole was critical for Raikkonen because it ultimately negated the need for any team orders come the race. As long as he got to the first corner in front, there would be little Felipe could do to reverse the situation.

There seems to be a certain amount of paranoia at Ferrari about any suggestions that Raikkonen will be favoured in the closing races, and yet any sane person could see after Monza that would be a logical strategy to pursue.

It makes even more sense now, for while Massa is still mathematically in the picture, it would be absurd for him to take points off Raikkonen when the Finn is just 13 off the lead.

The race itself was hardly a gripper, apart from the start. By chance I happened to position myself on the exit of La Source, where I watched proceedings with an extremely frustrated Christijan Albers. I wish I could provide some special insight into what exactly happened between the two McLarens, but other than recognising that Hamilton had run wide, it all happened a bit too quickly.

Afterwards, Hamilton made it crystal clear that he wasn't very happy, and certainly the TV pictures showed what might be termed a 'Schumacher-esque' lunge towards his teammate from Alonso.

It sent Hamilton on the wide line, but Alonso nearly screwed himself by getting onto the artificial grass, which is somewhat lacking in traction compared to the grey stuff. He just managed to beat Hamilton on the run to Eau Rouge, but it was close.

"Basically we all got quite equal starts, perhaps a little bit better for me than Fernando," said Hamilton.

"I braked quite late, and I was on the outside, quite close to the Ferrari, and I was just behind Felipe and started to accelerate. And all of a sudden Fernando came swooping across me. He knew I was there.

"The guy on the outside doesn't always have the corner. But there was enough room for us to get round fair and square.

"In the past you years you've watched F1, and for someone whose always complaining about other people doing unfair manoeuvres and everyone wanting to be fair, and someone I look up to, to suddenly swipe me and push me as wide as he could - I was just really lucky that there was run-off area.

"There was enough room for me to get round the corner and me to get round the corner, and it was quite deliberate. I could see it."

"I think they were both racing, that's what we pay them for," deadpanned Martin Whitmarsh after the race.

"I think that's one of the issues of the team and the way we run it. It didn't do anything for our health, momentarily, but they were racing each other.

"I think they're both pretty skilled drivers and they were pushing it to the limits. They were both reasonably robust with one another. Both probably felt that the other was more robust. They were tough, and there was no doubt that there were no team orders being practised there, let's put it like that."

Alonso might have assured himself of third place, but he also cost both McLarens momentum and took away any chance, however slight, that they might challenge the Ferraris later round the lap.

"I think that's true," said Whitmarsh. "Obviously we were very concerned when Fernando was off and lost momentum, he did a very good job to actually come back on the track from that. That's the cost of motor racing. I think they both did a good job to push it to the limit without pushing it over."

The speed with which the two silver cars dropped away from their rivals was astonishing. Fernando was 4.4s down on the leader after just five laps, and 7.9s after 10 laps.

In fact, at that stage the four top drivers were basically all running between 3-4s apart, and with the stops approaching it was evident that something would have to go seriously wrong for anything to change significantly.

Indeed, after the first stops the McLarens continued to drop away, and even extra laps before his second stop for Hamilton failed to make any difference to the outcome.

In the closing stages Raikkonen was around 18s ahead of Alonso before he backed off on the last lap. All four drivers had their Monza engines in, and as ever reliability played some part in the stalemate.

"Just a little bit towards the end," Ron Dennis said afterwards. "But that was more to make sure we had 100 percent reliability. If there was an opportunity for one of the drivers, we would have taken a risk."

It has to be said that Ron was quite buoyant afterwards. His tone was that of 'you can't win 'em all,' and I guess he thought that a McLaren success in Italy was worth more than a Ferrari victory in neutral Belgium. Third and fourth wasn't ideal, but it was enough to leave Raikkonen with a lot of chasing to do after the last three races.

"At the end of the day I'm happy, we had 100 percent reliability on the cars," said Dennis.

"We were trying to go a bit long, and then it's hard in the opening laps behind people, and it's a very long circuit. They didn't win by that much, although they were quite commanding at some parts of the race. It will swing around over the balance of the season.

"We were extremely dominant in Monza, and we've come with the same cars, and it explains how it just swings. The nature of the circuit is going to see it swing around.

"We're working very hard to improve the cars for the remaining three Grands Prix, so it's not just a race of drivers, it's a race of the teams as well. And we welcome the challenge.

"We hope that all three circuits are for us, because that would make life easier. We'll just have to see how things unfold."

Whitmarsh echoed those sentiments: "I think they looked strong and they were just quicker than us here. As we said at Monza, it's going to go backwards and forwards for the rest of this season.

"They had a good car here, a little bit quicker than us, I think both of our drivers today did a really good job, but we didn't quite have the pace here.

"You've got to keep pushing. It was clear that we weren't going to be threatened by anyone else, but it was tough to take the battle to Ferrari today, we didn't give our drivers a quick enough racing car.

"We want to win races, from a drivers' championship point of view it was not a disappointing weekend, but inevitably we're a little bit flat after the race because we're there to win, and we'd like either of our drivers to be on the top step of the remaining podiums."

He admitted that on this occasion, as in Monza, Alonso had the edge over his younger teammate:

"It was very close, I'm sure Lewis will be disappointed by his extremely high standards.

"But Fernando is a very quick and very experienced race driver. He made that pay the last two weekends, but Lewis will go now to Fuji, which he will consider a leveller. It's a technical circuit, neither of them have raced there, so it's a great opportunity to get the job done."

Inevitably the focus has been on McLaren of late, but Raikkonen is still in the picture, and if something very strange happens in the next couple of races, Massa could yet pull it off.

But as far as Ferrari was concerned, the main thing was to hit back after the Monza defeat, and give McLaren a beating on the track to match the one it received on Thursday in Paris.

After the race sporting director Stefano Domenicali made it quite clear that this wasn't just a normal win, and it wasn't as easy as it might have looked.

"We're very happy," he smiled. "It's always difficult, much more than what you can see outside. It was good to give an answer like that to the fact that in Monza we didn't perform so well.

"We knew that we had everything to keep on fighting for the championship, so we do all what we can to try to achieve the other title."

He admitted that even Ferrari wasn't fully aware of the advantage it had after qualifying.

"It's difficult to say, after qualifying you never know what is the fuel level of the others, so you try to reply on the track. We thought that our cars were quite competitive for sure.

"I think both drivers did a great lap, don't forget that the difference between the two was so small, it was unbelievable, and today they did a great race. To start in front is much better every time, for sure!"

The Monza defeat certainly brought out the best in the team:

"We discussed it of course, we did a debriefing, but you know this time you see how tight is the competition, one race is better, the other one is worse. But let's try to be positive and think about the next three races."

Like Jean Todt, he refused to countenance any suggestions that it was time for Massa to play a supporting role: "What we need to consider is that today was a great response from all the team. Then we will see what will be our approach. Up to now we didn't have to change."

Massa played his part of course at Spa in the sense that when he closed up in the final stint he was not allowed to race Raikkonen, but that is normal, sensible strategy among teammates.

The interesting thing will be what happens over these last three races. He's had the edge on Raikkonen in qualifying for most of the season, and even if he's routinely given the heavier fuel load from now on, he could well qualify ahead.

Then Ferrari has the problem of performing a 'correction' during the race. The FIA's stance on team orders, or specifically the swapping of places, is obviously less strict when the title is in the balance. Nevertheless it will be fascinating to see what unfolds.

The situation is no less interesting at McLaren, of course. Hamilton and Alonso effectively now have a three-race sprint, with Lewis given a two-point head start.

His big problem is that he doesn't know any of the circuits coming up, and while that didn't seem to handicap him in North America, it certainly won't help. Alonso even has a slight edge at Fuji, as he's been there for a demo run with Renault.

What makes it all the more fascinating is that Raikkonen is still close enough to keep the pressure on the McLaren men. In the next month we will really see whether Hamilton is made of the Right Stuff. There's no denying that after recent events he enjoys an even greater level of moral support within the camp, but he has to beat Alonso fair and square on pace.

"I'm going to keep pushing," he said at Spa. "I don't believe that the last three races will be like this race. Anything can happen. And I need to improve. I will go away this week and figure out how to do that.

"For sure it's not going as well as planned, and the gap is closing, but there are still three races left, and still three races we can win.

"I think the next track, Fuji, is not a disadvantage, because everyone's in the same boat. Looking to the last two, for sure there's a slight disadvantage. But I went to Australia, I went to Malaysia, and I was fine. I'll do some good preparations for it, and we'll see how it goes."

Whitmarsh summed it up perfectly: "I think it's going to be a great championship. It's good for the fans, I'm sure there are going to be a few heart-stopping moments in the remainder of the season, but I think that's really is good.

"Kimi is very much on form. We've got a reasonable margin there, but any mistake from anyone is going to easily cost a world championship."

Retirements will be critical of course, but the key to it all is as much what pans out between the teammates, and especially how Massa fits in to the equation.

By my calculations if the Spa result is repeated exactly over the next three races the final tally will be Raikkonen 114, Alonso 113 and Hamilton 112. It's that close ...

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- The Autosport.com Team

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