Lewis Hamilton's 2015 Belgian GP Pole Shows Improvement in Qualifying Approach
Fresh tyres, low fuel and the licence to push the car as hard as you dare.
For all the accusations that Formula One—in the current era of mumbling V6 turbo power units, fuel saving and fast-degrading rubber—has somehow lost its way and forgotten its roots, qualifying is the one aspect of a race weekend that presents a reminder of a simpler time.
It offers the chance for racing drivers to feel like racing drivers again and qualifying—especially qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps, the racing drivers' racing circuit—is the closest a current F1 driver can get to competing in the era that first encouraged them to pursue a life in motor racing.
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That makes it all the more surprising that Lewis Hamilton, the reigning world champion and purest performer on the current grid, doesn't like the challenge of Spa and all its majesty, featuring corners as iconic as Eau Rouge, Pouhon, Stavelot and Blanchimont.
Although he had secured two pole positions and won the Belgian Grand Prix in 2010, among the most exhilarating of his 38 victories, Hamilton, when asked if he regarded Spa as one of his favourite venues in Thursday's FIA press conference, revealed he had no great affection for the track.
His answer was short and surprisingly stinging: "No."
Despite his respectable record at the circuit, Spa has been the scene of some of the most disappointing moments of his career, including his cruel demotion to third after winning in 2008, his elimination from the 2011 race in the midst of a midlife crisis and his miserable afternoon in 2014.
Last year's Belgian GP, of course, is remembered for his second-lap collision with Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg at Les Combes, which instantly dropped him from first to last with a rear-left puncture and allowed the German to extend his championship lead from 11 to 29 points.
Yet almost equally disturbing for Hamilton—whose misery was elongated until Lap 38 as the team kept him trundling at the back in the faint hope of stealing a point or two—was his performance against Rosberg the previous day.
After setting four poles in the opening five races of 2014, Hamilton endured a barren spell at the mid-point of the campaign as he became his own worst enemy and suffered plenty of misfortune.
With each incident—from easing off on his final run at a soggy Silverstone, when the track was at its fastest, to his car catching fire in Hungary—waves of confidence were transported from one side of the Mercedes garage to the other, further stimulating Rosberg.
The Belgian GP, taking place a month after the blaze of Budapest, offered Hamilton an opportunity to reset and re-establish a rhythm to his qualifying sessions. However, another issue—a glazed brake, as he later told BBC Sport's Andrew Benson—left him again trailing his team-mate.
It was fitting, then, that at the place where his mountain of qualifying-related problems reached its peak in 2014, Hamilton achieved redemption at Spa.
His 10th pole in the first 11 grands prix means Hamilton, even at this stage, now cannot be beaten in the non-existent fight for the 2015 Pole Position Trophy—the indistinguishable accolade handed to the driver who sets the most poles across a given campaign.
The British driver's advantage of 0.458 seconds over Rosberg, per the official F1 website, was exaggerated due to the sheer length of the Spa circuit, yet the fact that this is the fifth time Hamilton has outqualified the German by more than 0.3 seconds only underlines his dominance on Saturdays in 2015.
His resounding triumph over Rosberg, after being outqualified by his team-mate in 12 of last season's 19 races, has allowed Hamilton to regain his status as the fastest driver in F1 over one lap. It is the direct result of tweaks to the car and his own application.
Hamilton's late-braking driving style meant his troubles, and subsequent lack of confidence, with the brakes of last year's W05 car were magnified. Those issues have seemingly been addressed this season, but a bonus for Hamilton, and a huge complication for Rosberg, is the mercurial nature of this season's W06.
While the W05 was, in many ways, the perfect racing car—capable of excelling at every circuit type, on every tyre compound and in all weather conditions—the W06 is very much a temperamental beast.
Since pre-season, the Silver Arrows have struggled to effectively set up the W06. Rosberg, despite setting a rapid lap time at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, told GPUpdate.net how the balance "was very far away from where it needed to be," adding that "it's really difficult to understand where to go."
Those complaints remained when the team returned to the track for the Spanish Grand Prix in May. Despite having an extra two months to truly understand the car, both drivers bemoaned their difficulties in finding a setup, according to Sky Sports' James Galloway.
While Rosberg, the cerebral driver that he is, is at his best when he drives with a clear, defined setup, Hamilton is better equipped to adjust his driving style to the requirements of his car.
At Spa, Rosberg going "the wrong way" in terms of setup in the third practice session, as he told the post-qualifying FIA press conference, almost gifted the advantage to Hamilton—especially after the German appeared to have the upper hand in Friday practice.
The most noticeable difference, however, has been psychological. After being accused of driving without intelligence for much of his career, Hamilton finally appears to recognise the benefits of taking a measured approach to a race weekend.
Once F1's ultimate hard-charger, Hamilton now eases into a grand prix, gradually increasing his pace so that when the green light shines at the end of the pit lane to signal the start of Q3 on a Saturday afternoon, he is operating at his maximum, producing a lap nobody—not even the man with identical machinery—can match.
It is that strategy that allowed Hamilton to establish much of his advantage over Rosberg in the space of just five corners in Spa's second sector, as noted by Sky Sports' Anthony Davidson, and is yet more evidence of how he has evolved in the nine months since his second championship triumph in 2014.
With the Pole Trophy already in the bag, Hamilton's third title surely beckons.
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