2014 Belgian GP: Ricciardo wins as Mercedes duo collide at Spa

The 2014 Belgian GP at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps was won by Daniel Ricciardo in the Red Bull from grid position 5. Nico Rosberg (Mercedes) and Valtteri Bottas (Williams) joined him on the podium. The race was effectively decided on lap 2: the two Mercedes drivers touched on the approach to Les Combes, and from then on the dominant Silver Arrows were no longer a factor in the fight for the win.

Rosberg started from pole position but made a poor getaway. Lewis Hamilton took the lead from grid position 2 as early as La Source. Heading uphill towards Eau Rouge, Sebastian Vettel went past Rosberg and slotted in between the two Mercedes. He later also outbraked Hamilton, but locked up on cold tyres, cut across the run-off area and dropped back to 3rd place. Rosberg reclaimed second.

The decisive moment came on lap 2. Rosberg used the slipstream and tried to go around the outside of Hamilton into Les Combes. Hamilton held his line. In the process, the right-hand endplate of Rosberg's front wing sliced open his team-mate's left rear tyre. Hamilton limped back to the pits with a puncture. The tyre had shredded on the exit of Pouhon and damaged the bodywork. Hamilton dropped right to the back of the field; according to our data, he was 19th three laps after his stop on lap 2.

Rosberg was now leading, but reported front-wing damage and could not pull away from Vettel and Fernando Alonso. The stewards later deemed the collision a racing incident.

Behind the Mercedes, Ricciardo worked his way forward. In the opening phase he passed Alonso first and then Vettel, who had run onto the damp artificial grass at Pouhon. On lap 8, Rosberg had to pit to change tyres and the damaged front wing. According to our data, the stop cost him 30.0 seconds in the pit lane and dropped him to 8th place, measured three laps later. That handed the lead to Ricciardo.

After Ricciardo's first stop on lap 11, Bottas led for a single lap on lap 12, before the Australian retook the lead from lap 13 and held it all the way to the chequered flag. He made do with two stops (laps 11 and 27). Rosberg needed three.

Mercedes called Rosberg in for a third time on lap 34. According to Grandprix.com, he was around 21 seconds behind Ricciardo at that point and gained roughly three seconds per lap on fresh soft tyres. After rejoining, he first battled with Bottas, then got past Kimi Räikkönen. According to Formula1.com, Ricciardo's lead shrank from 21.6 seconds on lap 35 to 4.3 seconds on lap 43. In the end he held on to win by 3.383 seconds. Rosberg set the fastest lap of the race with a 1:50.511 on lap 36.

Bottas passed Räikkönen late in the race to take 3rd place. Even so, 4th place was the Finn's best result in the Ferrari since the 2013 Korean GP.

Further back, there was a fierce fight for 5th place in the closing stages. Vettel, Kevin Magnussen, Jenson Button and Alonso were running nose to tail. Vettel got the better of Magnussen at La Source. Alonso clipped the rear of Vettel's car and lost part of his front wing.

Alonso: Ferrari mechanics were still working on the car with less than 15 seconds to go before the formation lap. According to Wikipedia, the battery was flat and Ferrari had to fit a replacement. Alonso was handed a five-second stop-and-go penalty for this, which he served at his first stop on lap 12. According to our data, that is why he spent 28.9 seconds in the pit lane. He finished seventh.

Magnussen: Shortly before the end, the McLaren driver forced Alonso onto the grass on the Kemmel Straight. He was given a 20-second time penalty after the race and dropped to 12th place.

The retirements:
- Pastor Maldonado (Lotus F1) retired after lap 1 with a technical problem. Wikipedia cites a suspected exhaust failure.
- André Lotterer (Caterham) stopped at the side of the track on the first lap, according to Formula1.com. Our data gives the power unit as the official reason. The Le Mans winner was standing in for Kamui Kobayashi at Spa and making his Formula 1 debut. At 32, he was the oldest debutant since Giovanni Lavaggi in 1995, according to Wikipedia.
- Romain Grosjean (Lotus F1) parked his car after 33 laps for an unexplained reason.
- Hamilton asked the team to retire him because his car had been damaged since the collision. Mercedes brought him in after 38 laps.
- Jules Bianchi (Marussia) had already suffered a cut tyre in contact with Grosjean on the first lap. He retired with a gearbox failure after 39 laps but was still classified 18th.

Winners:
- Ricciardo claimed his third Grand Prix win and his second in a row after the Hungarian GP. That made him the only driver other than the Mercedes pair to have won in 2014 up to that point. It was Red Bull's 50th win in Formula 1.
- Nico Hülkenberg (Force India) gained the most places: he went from grid position 18 to 10th place and scored a point.
- His team-mate Sergio Pérez gained five places, from grid position 13 to 8th place. Esteban Gutiérrez (Sauber) in 15th place and Marcus Ericsson (Caterham) in 17th place also made up five places each.
- Daniil Kvyat scored points for Toro Rosso in ninth. His team-mate Jean-Éric Vergne just missed out in eleventh.

Losers:
- Hamilton retired from grid position 2 without scoring.
- Magnussen's penalty left him five places down on his grid position 7.
- According to Formula1.com, Felipe Massa was held back early on by debris and could only finish 13th.
- At McLaren, only Button scored points, in sixth.
- Behind Adrian Sutil in 14th place, Max Chilton (Marussia) finished 16th, ahead of Ericsson.

Rosberg lost valuable points in the fight for the win at Spa, but still gained ground in the title race: according to the 2014 standings, he now led on 220 points from Hamilton on 191. That stretched his advantage to 29 points. Ricciardo was 3rd on 156 points, ahead of Alonso (121) and Bottas (110). In the constructors' championship, Mercedes led comfortably on 411 points from Red Bull on 254.

Yet the mood was sour. Rosberg was booed on the podium. Hamilton claimed Rosberg had admitted the contact was deliberate, which Rosberg denied. The team management around Toto Wolff and Niki Lauda was furious. Wolff made it clear that a collision like this “cannot and will not happen again” (paraphrased from Grandprix.com). Five days after the race, the team held talks with both drivers. Rosberg apologised for an error of judgement and received an undisclosed sanction. There were still no fixed team orders, however. Spa thus marked the toughest moment yet in the intra-team battle between the Silver Arrows. You can find all the results on our 2014 results page.