Since the “Hoop of the Bulge” in World War II there has not been such an exasperating wait in the Ardennes Forest as was given on Sunday 29 August in the Belgian Formula 1 Grand Prix, But with the difference that the end result was absolutely anticlimatic.
After more than three hours of waiting, the fans could only “enjoy” three laps on the track, chained by the attendance act, that was all. But also the safety and life of the pilots is the most important and this was privileged.
It all started with a permanent rain caused track officials commanded by Australian Michael Masi to stop all action on the 7,004-meter circuit. Spa-Francorchamps, but it was the Mexican driver, Sergio Pérez who made it worse.
A quarter of an hour before the time set for the length (3.00 am local time 9ET / 6PT), all the performances went out for a lap to take their place on the grid. With the heavy rain, the denied track was a pool, but here came the error of the steering wheel of Red Bull Act 11.
At the entrance of the set of curves known as ‘Les Combes’, Checo Pérez entered past and with great confidence stepped on a laundry with the left front tire and lost grip. The back of your RB16B sticks with clear ‘oversteer’. Sergio wanted to correct, but there was no traction and he ended up against the tire-protected fence.
At that moment, a few minutes after the start, the destination of the tapatío seemed definite: it would not start the Grand Prix, but the rain did not stop and after waiting more than half an hour with the performances on the grid, they made a couple of laps of installation with safety car and immediately afterwards it was declared red flag.
It was then that Red Bull realized that perhaps he could repair Perez’s act and perhaps get it ready before the length was given.
Uncertainty coexisted with the rush to the pit of act number 11. Could he or could he not return? Would you do it with laps or one lap less than the rest? Paul Monaghan, Red Bull’s chief engineer has advocated for his pilot’s case, and although Masi had initially said he could not return, he consulted with his commissioners and gave the green light for his return which would be from the tail and should come out of the breasts.
So passed the minutes that turned into hours. The regulations say that after three and a half hours after the installation lap the Grand Prix must start or it will be canceled. Race control decided to stop the count when 60 minutes were left for him to finish, then gave Belgium’s 6:17 pm as a long hour.
The plan was for the 20 performances to come out, the Czech one was finished a long time ago, behind the safety car, but in green flag condition. It was three laps of farce for the thousands of fans who endured, without moving, more than four hours in the rain.
Engineers and team members explained the impossibility of running mainly for two points that compromised the safety of the drivers in a very dangerous way:
1.- Very low visibility due to the trail of dew or spray left by the performances.
2.- But especially the aquaplaneo, which is when the tires completely lose contact with the floor when passing through a deep puddle and where the rubbers can not evacuate enough fluid. At this time they go from being single-seater to uncontrolled boats. As explained in the TV broadcast, the director of the Alpine team, the current performances of F1 “are not designed” to evacuate such an amount of water, on the contrary, the level of aerodynamic load that makes them work favors the aquaplane.
Again the red flag and the statement finished the “race”. What was there was a FIA martingale to give the event as legally held in the eyes of local organizers and rights-grabbing TV stations. But also a decision based on the integrity of the pilots, their safety.
In the end, a podium, with Max Verstappen as the winner, George Russell, second and Lewis Hamilton, third, passed without water, which rewarded the fastest of the qualifying, because there was no real race.
The cloudiest day in F1 history, perhaps, but they all came out unscathed.