So today saw the eagerly awaited return of on track action as the Formula One circus rolled into SPA, Belgium after the five week Summer break. It was set to be fascinating day of practice that was until the heaven's opened up this morning and led to limited track action in FP1.
The yellow flag's came out during the session as Felipe Massa's engine blew just as it came to a close. It was extremely unfortunate for the many fan's who had travelled o the circuit for practice. Following first practice the condition's became terrible and there was no on track action.
At the end of the day RedBull announced that they had to change Mark Webber's gearbox which will come as a blow to the Aussie as he will receive a five place grid penalty. The RedBull driver is currently second in the championship standing's 40 point's behind Fernando Alonso and only two points ahead of team mate Sebastien Vettel.
I can't wait to see how Mark gets on in SPA he overtook Alonso in spectacular fashion going through Eau Rouge at last year's race so he is going to need a repeat performance this year to ensure that he can stay ahead of Vettel and try and close the gap to Fernando Alonso. As I have mentioned previously, heading into this weekend's race from 2nd to 5th are only separated by eight points.
The Lotus team announced that they will not run their new Double DRS device on Sunday due to the lack of running on Friday. I believe that they will really see a benefit from the device at next weekend's Italian GrandPric in Monza. I believe however, that with the other update's that the team have brought to the race this weekend will compensate for not using the Double DRS and I am certainly hoping that the team will be able to to sort out their qualifying performances.
In my opinion, SPA along with Monza are two of the only really traditional high speed cicruit's left in Formula One. SPA has a great mix of high speed corners and straight's along with slow corner's including the famous bus stop chicane which in wet conditions can be extremely tricky for the drivers.
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