Once again, history repeats itself at Spa
It's true, history repeats itself. After several coincidences seen in yesterday afternoon's qualifying, today's race also produced events with some uncanny similarities to events of the past. Sadly for him, this was down to George Russell, disqualified after sealing a fantastic win, because his Mercedes was found to be one and a half kilos under the legal minimum weight of 798 kilos. It was heartbreaking for the Englishman, who drove a brilliant race and towards the end had to fight off the attentions of his hard charging team-mate Lewis Hamilton.
The very same Hamilton who had endured a similar if less punitive fate back in 2008. That year in Spa, Lewis was first past the flag in a crazy race where the rain had jumbled things up and in which he and Kimi Raikkonen swapped the lead several times. Both of them were on slick tyres as the track got increasingly slippery and treacherous. The Finn crashed his Ferrari into the barriers, leaving the path clear for Lewis to go on to take the win. However, Ferrari protested the Englishman's driving, the Stewards agreed and gave Hamilton a 25 second penalty, which dropped him to third, which meant that Kimi's team-mate, Felipe Massa, was declared the winner.
Then, thirty years ago, again in the Belgian Grand Prix, Michael Schumacher suffered the same fate as Russell did today. The German, at the wheel of his Ford-Cosworth powered Benetton dominated proceedings, taking the chequered flag over 30 seconds ahead of Damon Hill in the Williams-Renault, but once again the FIA post-race scrutineering would prove to be the German's undoing. It was found that the wooden skid plates, fitted to the floor of the car so that the car could not run too near the ground, thus gaining more ground effect downforce, had worn more than the one millimetre allowed in the regulations. The Benetton team manager argued that the excessive wear was caused when Schumacher drove off the track on lap 19, but the Stewards were having none of it, thus exacerbating further the relationship between the Enstone-based team and the FIA, which was already far from idyllic. Benefiting from the decision were Damon Hill, who thus secured the second of his three Spa wins, with Mika Hakkinen second and a certain Verstappen, no not Max, but his father Jos, in third place, his second and last podium appearance.
