Rate the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix

Best driver:
Worst driver:
Best team:
Worst team:
Best overtake:
Worst overtake:
Best moment:
Worst moment:
Best thing about the race:
Worst thing about the race:

And the race in a sentence:

Best driver: Max Verstappen

Worst driver: Nicholas Latifi
Best team: Red Bull

Worst team: Ferrari, McLaren

Best overtake: Sainz just before Pouhon, Ocon on those two cars

Best moment: Stroll drifting on the sand and not binning it

And the race in a sentence: I hoped for an exciting Spa, great first 10 laps, then complete boredom.

I hate the idea of Spa getting removed from the calendar for another crappy city circuit, but I haven't seen an exciting race here in a long while. Also, the Albon DRS train killed any chance of excitement in the mid field.

Edited by 1player, 28 August 2022 - 14:49.

Best driver: Verstappen
Worst driver: Perez (same rocketship, but not the same party)
Best team: Red Bull (what a rocketship)
Worst team: Ferrari.  Maybe the questions should be "Worst Team that isn't Ferrari".  This is one title they are going to walk away with.
Best overtake: Schumaker through Eau Rouge?
Worst overtake: Hamilton on Alonso
Best moment: Alonso have a temper-tantrum
Worst moment: Leclerc having an early pitstop and putting paid to any possibility of a decent battle at the front.
Best thing about the race: It finally finished
Worst thing about the race: It was a one horse race

And the race in a sentence:  Not a classic.  Not even a very good race.

Worst driver: Perez (same rocketship, but not the same party

Seriously, a driver finishing 2nd the worst???   Perez did a perfect job today. His job is to finish 2nd behind Max and he did exactly that today. And you don't take in to consideration that top teams always develop their car around their lead driver so naturally a 2nd driver will always get more behind in the second half of the season.

Seems my 7 is the highest rating so far .... seeing MV make full use of that rocketship was worth it. 

What's the point of being an F1 fan if you dont appreciate excellence when it is right in front of you ..... this was not a normal performance by MV - this was top drawer .... its a great car - but it didnt drive itself.

Edited by jjcale, 28 August 2022 - 15:00.

This is a watershed moment for the Max era.

Definitely. Red Bull have built their equivalent of the Mercedes-AMG W11 that dominated 2020.

The only chance is Merc making great upgrades next year, because otherwise this is the start of another domination era.

Most people want to see a race not one car nearly a second a lap quicker and the rest of the grid not even bothering to put up even a token fight against it.

3. If DRS is on Kemmel next season it will also be <5.

5 for me.

Quite predictable at all levels. Verstappen rapid and looking like a great all-rounder. Hamilton's "racecraft". Ferrari pretty weak at all levels. Alonso getting hot on the radio. Latifi crashing.

Looking forward to Zandvoort.

Best driver: Max Verstappen
Worst driver: Latifi
Best team: Red Bull
Worst team: Ferrari
Best overtake: Ocon
Worst overtake: Guess Verstappens DRS overtakes. 
Best moment: Ocons reverse Hakkinen move on Vettel/Gasly
Worst moment: Journos trying to undermine any possible conflicts
Best thing about the race: Awsome performance by Max
Worst thing about the race: How the Ferrari team just abandoned their drivers

And the race in a sentence: Many talks about domination but going by previous results this season I think this was more of a perfect storm situation with Verstappen storming to success!!

Best driver: Verstappen
Worst driver: Latifi
Best team: Red Bull
Worst team: FAILrrari
Best overtake: Schumacher @ EAU ROUGE
Best moment: The Safety Car in the first laps.
Worst moment: Red Bull 1-2, got nothing against them, I even like Max, but it just killed off any chances of a battle for the championships.
Best thing about the race: none
Worst thing about the race: Ferrari losing any chance of fighting for the titles.

Absolute borefast, except a few moments in the beginning.

Should've give less than 6/10, bu anyways...

Race in a sentence....

Edited by MasterOfCoin, 28 August 2022 - 15:28.

Better than last year, amirite?

2 - Farcical.....

Surely nothing less then a 10 !!!

Hamilton's spectacular and legendary race of the ages last year from place 10 to the nr. 1 spot in Brasil with that new engine comes to mind 

Best driver:  Max by some distance.  Russell with a runners- up
Worst driver: Sergio for serious lack of pace, Lewis for removing himself
Best team: Red Bull
Worst team: Ferrari - they look down and out
Best overtake:  Ocon a couple of times
Worst overtake: Has to be Lewis
Best moment: Max in the lead- kind of expected
Worst moment: Bottas's bad luck, being tapped out by Latifi having his own moment. He bad luck continues.
Best thing about the race:  The end
Worst thing about the race:  Spa looks nice, the cars look great on a flying lap, but the races are dull.  Would take the new Hockenheim over this track.  Or Hungary.

And the race in a sentence: Typical modern day (last 20+ years) Spa race.

This is a watershed moment for the Max era.

Max seems so much more relaxed this year. Last year he was often way too agressive and did desperate moves. But this year he has matured and drives like an all time great. I guess the effect of winning the world title boosted his confidence even more. The pressure of having to win his first title is off his shoulders now and it shows. He was totally in conrol and did the perfect race today. But that also means it was a very boring race (for the win for sure), I never had any doubt he would win today so it was also a very predictable race.

Best driver: Max, of course, then maybe Albon.
Worst driver: Latifi 
Best team: There can be no debate about that
Worst team: It would be easy to say Ferrari, but McLaren 12th and 15th? They "win" this category.
Best overtake: None of the memorable apart maybe  from the double on Vettel.
Worst overtake: Hamilton on Alonso.
Best moment: Seeing both Max and Charles surviving lap 1.
Worst moment: Seeing Leclerc pit himself out of contention so early on. 
Best thing about the race: I like it when Max wins.
Worst thing about the race: Realizing that RBR no longer have any competition.

And the race in a sentence: I think that the sand traps seem to help the drivers to stay on track and Ferrari has lost something more than just the strategy department. I hope they find it.  

Max seems so much more relaxed this year. Last year he was often way too agressive and did desperate moves. But this year he has matured and drives like an all time great. I guess the effect of winning the world title boosted his confidence even more. The pressure of having to win his first title is off his shoulders now and it shows. He was totally in conrol and did the perfect race today. But that also means it was a very boring race (for the win for sure), I never had any doubt he would win today so it was also a very predictable race.

Yeah, although historically he is dirty in defence rather than attack. So what stood out for me was how fair he was with Leclerc in Austria, taking the second when the win wasn't on.

Best driver:  Max Verstappen: car & driver in perfect balance.

Honourable mentions: Alex Albon holding off a DRS train to score the final point. Felipe Drugovich drove like an F2 champ in F2, Jack Doohan winning the F2 feature race with a great performance, Sebastian Vettel scoring more points for Aston, George Russell's 4th was probably as much as he could hope for and he wasn't far behind Sainz.

Worst driver: Can only be Nicholas Latifi. Whilst Albon excelled, Latifi was so much slower as his team mate and he ruined Valtteri Bottas race.
Best team: Red Bull
Worst team: Haas didn't have the speed this weekend  but Ferrari deserves this tag: they are know putting the responsibility of strategy & tire choise with their drivers.... unbelievable.
Best overtake: for sure Esteban Ocon doing a Häkkinen on Gasly & Vettel.
Best moment: Ocon doing a Mika Häkinen (who did that on Schumacher & Zonta)

- in F3 the championship is wide open with 5-6 drivers still with a a shot at the title!
Worst moment: Latifi forcing Bottas to avoid him and getting stuck in gravel
Best thing about the race:  that we races at Francorschamps, probably the most wonderful circuit in the world
Worst thing about the race: it was incredibly boring and predictable

And the race in a sentence: It seems like Red Bull had an F1 car and all others drove in F2 cars: very dominant performance by Red Bull, unfortunately also very boring to watch.

Edited by William Hunt, 28 August 2022 - 16:18.

Worst/best thing about the race:

Probably that awesome looking scene of Lewis walking away in the sunset , that's begging to be used for .gifs and meme's in the coming weeks   

Had so much promise, but quickly turned into the usual predicable borefest.  Turned it off and went grocery shopping instead. 

Best driver: Max Verstappen: car & driver in perfect balance.
Honourable mentions: Alex Albon holding off a DRS train to score the final point. Felipe Drugovich drove like an F2 champ in F2, Jack Doohan winning the F2 feature race with a great performance, Sebastian Vettel scoring more points for Aston, George Russell's 4th was probably as much as he could hope for and he wasn't far behind Sainz.
Worst driver: Can only be Nicholas Latifi. Whilst Albon excelled, Latifi was so much slower as his team mate and he ruined Valtteri Bottas race.
Best team: Red Bull
Worst team: Haas didn't have the speed this weekend but Ferrari deserves this tag: they are know putting the responsibility of strategy & tire choise with their drivers.... unbelievable.
Best overtake: for sure Esteban Ocon doing a Häkkinen on Gasly & Vettel.
Best moment: Ocon doing a Mika Häkinen (who did that on Schumacher & Zonta)
- in F3 the championship is wide open with 5-6 drivers still with a a shot at the title!
Worst moment: Latifi forcing Bottas to avoid him and getting stuck in gravel
Best thing about the race: that we races at Francorschamps, probably the most wonderful circuit in the world
Worst thing about the race: it was incredibly boring and predictable

And the race in a sentence: It seems like Red Bull had an F1 car and all others drove in F2 cars: very dominant performance by Red Bull, unfortunately also very boring to watch.

Worst/best thing about the race:[/size]
Probably that awesome looking scene of Lewis walking away in the sunset , that's begging to be used for .gifs and meme's in the coming weeks [/size] [/size]

Edited by messy, 28 August 2022 - 18:53.

Best venue left on the schedule....the runaway superiority of the Red Bulls mitigated against great racing though. This formula's not much good.

Ferrari asking the drivers what to do during the race is hilarious.

Best venue left on the schedule....the runaway superiority of the Red Bulls mitigated against great racing though. This formula's not much good.

DRS has been around for more than 10 years and the FIA still hasn't realized that it ruins any chance of a battle at Spa.

A 6. The race was destroyed by DRS which let Max carve through the field.If any track doesn’t need DRS it’s Spa.

Seriously, a driver finishing 2nd the worst???   Perez did a perfect job today. His job is to finish 2nd behind Max and he did exactly that today. And you don't take in to consideration that top teams always develop their car around their lead driver so naturally a 2nd driver will always get more behind in the second half of the season.

Perez did nothing wrong. The car was so far ahead of everything else once they got into the 1-2 holding positions they just had to cruise home. He wouldn't have been allowed to beat Verstappen (not that he had the pace to anyway) so there was zero benefit for pushing any harder.

Best driver: Verstappen, but considering the car was 0.5-0.75 quicker than the rest its very hard to say, it was basically unchallenged.
Worst driver: Latifi probably? 
Best team: Red Bull
Worst team: Ferrari. Relative to expectations anyway, pitting Leclerc to get a penalty on the last lap when they were no were near fast enough to get the fastest lap was icing on the cake.
Best overtake: The overtake in the DRS zone.
Worst overtake: Hamilton's attempt on Alonso, sadly.
Best moment: Nothing stood out.
Worst moment: Hamilton being in the race would have at least left some tension. 
Best thing about the race: 
Worst thing about the race:

And the race in a sentence: Zzzzz

DOTD is Verstappen, but imo only by a razor's edge over Ocon. Ocon's drive was seriously impressive today imo.

Albon hanging on to 10th was also a great effort.  Max was the standout but Russell, Ocon and Albon were best of the rest, and Vettel had a good GP too.

Albon hanging on to 10th was also a great effort. Max was the standout but Russell, Ocon and Albon were best of the rest, and Vettel had a good GP too.

Edited by ARTGP, 28 August 2022 - 22:14.

Nah, I'd argue Suzuka is better in terms of driving challenge and spectacle. Can't wait to see it back this autumn.

Suzuka is my #2.

Best moment: Watching Lewis walk back to the pits. Here's a screen grab.

I think the DRS zones for this race should be the back "straight" (or bend, whatever you want to call it) into the chicane and then the front straight into the hairpin. The current DRS zones don't seem to suit a track like this. 

I enjoyed Ocon's overtake, but was pretty indifferent about the rest of the race. Ferrari and McLaren in particular annoyed me 

I gave it a 6. Would've probably been lower but these kinds of Hamilton-esque performances from Verstappen haven't (yet) become so frequent that I stop appreciating how good they are.

Best driver: Max Verstappen. Quick car but not everyone would've made the opposition so irrelevant.
Worst driver: Probably Latifi, not for poor performance but he's clearly not on Albon's level or the level of Grand Prix driving generally.
Best team: Red Bull
Worst team: Haas. Where were they?
Best moment: Some extremely brave driving from Ocon as he came through to 7th.
Worst moment: Hamilton getting it all wrong trying to overtake Alonso into Les Combes.
Best thing about the race: Alex Albon hanging on for tenth
Worst thing about the race: Race control haven't got DRS right at Spa.

Best driver: Max Verstappen was in a class of his own and his rise to the front of the pack was irresistible - a modern equivalent of Jackie Stewart winning from 16th on the grid at Kyalami.

Worst driver: Nicolas Latifi again failed to impress and took Bottas out of the race for good measure.

Best team: Red Bull, can't argue with a very comfortable one-two from a race where their lead driver took a grid drop.

Worst team: Haas were surprisingly poor in qualifying and really didn't impress in the race.

Best overtake: Ocon's double overtake on Vettel and Gasly was the clear standout.

Worst overtake: Hamilton's attempt to pass Alonso on lap 1 was not one of his best, to put it mildly.

Best thing about the race: Some quite interesting and surprising results in the lower reaches of the top ten - a strong run to seventh for Ocon, while Vettel drove well to eighth and Albon produced another fine 10th place in the Williams.

Worst thing about the race: DRS on the Kemmel Straight was too powerful, resulting in seemingly very easy overtakes which contributed to the other major problem, the finishing order being largely decided around half distance.

And the race in a sentence: Verstappen looks unstoppable on the circuit and in the championship.

I have mixed feelings about this race, I give it a 6/10 as I still love this circuit (it may not present as much of a challenge for modern F1 cars, but I still thoroughly enjoy watching them tackle the fast corners) there was quite a lot of action in the first half of the race and Verstappen's performance was superb to watch. On the other hand, Verstappen seemed so much quicker than everyone else that his charge to the front didn't really come as a surprise and DRS took a lot of excitement out of many of the overtakes as the defending driver was powerless against the straight line speed advantage of the car behind.

Best driver: Max

Worst driver: Latifi
Best team: Red Bull
Worst team: Haas seemed anonymous
Best overtake: Leclerc passing Stroll on the grass
Worst overtake: Hamilton on Alonso
Best moment: Alonso's radio
Worst moment: Bottas being taken out
Best thing about the race: Lap 1 was exciting
Worst thing about the race: Hamilton and Leclerc being out of the lead running

And the race in a sentence: 4/10

Best driver: Max
Worst driver: Latifi
Best team: Red Bull
Worst team: Haas
Best overtake: Ocon on 2 others (didnt remember the names)
Worst overtake: Hamilton on Alonso
Best moment: When Max took the lead on lap 12 or something
Worst moment: Crash Hamilton
Best thing about the race: Albon scoring a point
Worst thing about the race: Borefest at the front after lap 12

And the race in a sentence: Totall domination

I gave the race a 7

Edited by Dimocash, 31 August 2022 - 11:57.