The breaking news was that someone ignored HR's advice and fired the top two dogs at Alpine at the start of the race event. Alan Pomaine and Otmar Schnafhauzer had to work the weekend and would then be given a year's gardening leave, whilst Pomaine had worked at the team for 34 years. I'm assuming that redundancy will cost Alpine a full year's cost-capped budget.
Instagram was full of pictures of how wet it has been in Spa but the rain stopped just in time for Quaifying so everyone had to wait 10 minutes for the track to drain of water. Qualifying did not continue smoothly. Sargeant had to get a new gearbox fitted but did get out for Q1. Albon was impeded by Verstappen. Norris took a bumpy trip through the gravel and had possible front wing damage. Track limits violations rang up every lap.
Hulkenberg had hydraulic problems and only set a tester lap and went out. Ricciardo went through but on a lap where he went out of track limits, so was out. Both Williams went out with Zhou too.
In Q2, the big talking points were the drying track and slick tyres and then Ocon hit the wall and damaged his front wing. Ricciardo's team mate went first briefly at the end of the session, putting DannyRic to shame. As the seconds ticked down, the track improved and improved. Versappen put in a spectactualy poor lap and got through in 10th. Out went Tsunoda, Gasly, Magnussen, Bottas and Ocon. Verstappen got very swearing on the radio and his engineer came back equally snappy.
In the final Qualifying session, we hoped that pole was open to more drivers than just Verstappen but ultimately it was Verstappen. As he is taking a 5 place grid penalty for a gearbox change, LeClerc will be promoted to pole, then Peres, Hamilton, Sainz, Piastri outqualifying Norris, Russell, Alonso and Stroll.
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