DANIEL TAKES SENSATIONAL SPA WIN

August 25, 2014 by Infiniti

FRANCORCHAMPS, Stavelot, Belgium – Daniel Ricciardo took a superb third win of the season at Spa-Francorchamps to take the team's 50th grand prix win. In doing so he became the first Australian since Jack Brabham in 1960 to win the Belgian Grand Prix.

Sebastian Vettel fought his way to fifth place, winning another titanic battle in the closing stages as he passed McLaren's Jenson Button, Ferrari's Fernando Alonso and the second McLaren of Kevin Magnussen in the final three laps.

The platform for Daniel's second win in a row was built in the opening laps of the race. At the race start, pole position driver Nico Rosberg got away slowly and was passed on the run up to La Source by Lewis Hamilton. Sebastian also got past the championship leader on the exit of the hairpin, slotting into second place.

Behind them, Daniel, who had started fifth, moved past Alonso at Turn Five but then locked up and ran wide, ceding the place back to the Ferrari driver. He was soon ahead of the Spaniard again, though, flying past the double champion on the way through Les Combes on lap four.

While Dan was battling with Alonso, drama was unfolding at the front. On lap one Sebastian had tried to overtake leader Hamilton at Les Combes but had out-braked himself and slipped back to third behind Rosberg. Then, on the following lap, Rosberg tried to pass his teammate at the same corner. The two collided, with Rosberg shipping front wing damage and Hamilton sustaining a puncture.

Rosberg carried on in the lead but Hamilton was forced to limp all the way round the circuit to the pits for a new wheel. He dropped to the back of the field and he would eventually retire from the race on lap 39.

Rosberg's pace, meanwhile, was compromised by the wing damage to his car and both Sebastian and Daniel were closing. On lap six, however, Sebastian ran wide at Pouhon and Daniel swept past.

The Aussie was soon on Rosberg's tail. The response from Mercedes was to pit the German for a new front wing and medium tires on lap eight. Dan took the lead.

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For Daniel it was then a case of responding to whatever Mercedes tried in terms of strategy. When Rosberg flat-spotted his medium tires and was forced into taking on another set of mediums, the race swung heavily in Dan's favor.

Rosberg pushed to try to stay in touch through Dan's second and final visit to pit lane in the hope that his own final stop, for soft tires, would let him utilize the option tire's greater pace for a challenge on the lead.

Dan was the model of consistency, however, and he maintained the gap effortlessly until the end, eventually taking the checkered flag with three seconds in hand over the German.

'You know everyone was saying we didn't really have a chance around here, but I think we had some really good pace today and surprised ourselves.' said Daniel afterwards. 'It feels a bit surreal, but another win is very cool, very cool.

'It was difficult staying out at the end of the race. When you're the leader as well you always feel like you're the most vulnerable when it comes to a pit stop or not, but Simon my engineer came on the radio and said I think it's 11 laps left, can these tires get to the end? And I said I think I can keep more or less this pace, and we were able to, and then on the last lap I found a couple more tenths, so I was having a bit of fun then!

'There's been a lot of good things about the win today. Obviously the last two came from a more aggressive style of race, but today was more calculated and it was nice to win under different circumstances.'

After his brief off early in the race, Seb settled into third place. He made his first stop for tires on lap 10 taking on option rubber. He ran a 12-lap second stint and after taking on medium tires he dropped to fifth.

His final stop, for soft tires, came on lap 34. He dropped to eighth, and then set about using the pace they gave him to work his way back up the order.

It was a huge fight, too. Kevin Magnussen was in fifth but appeared to be holding up the drivers behind. A train, consisting on Alonso and Jenson Button, was joined by the hard-charging Seb.

With the drivers at one stage four abreast along the long Kemmel Straight, there was no quarter asked or given but eventually Sebastian muscled his way through to fifth behind Kimi Raikkonen and third-placed Valtteri Bottas.

'Towards the end of the race was good. I was in a rush to get through because the laps were going down and obviously Alonso and Magnussen didn't have fresh tires, so Jenson and me caught them fairly quickly,' he said.

'In the end it was good not to lose a position compared to when we decided to pit, which was probably a little bit late, but in the end we maintained the position. The battle was fairly interesting, it was a bit all over the place with people pushing each other off on the track, but we raced hard, although sometimes maybe a bit too hard! The team did a great job in the pit stops – three perfect stops – they felt really quick.'

Later Team Principal Christian Horner saluted Daniel's securing of the team's 50th win, but added that Sebastian's race may have been slightly hampered by either damage or the need to adopt an aggressive strategy.

'A phenomenal performance today to get our 50th win,' he said. 'Of all the tracks to win at, Spa was one of the ones that we didn't expect to. Daniel drove an incredible race and had good pace throughout; it got very close at the end there with Nico, but he just managed to hold on and have enough in hand to get to the checkered flag first.

'Sebastian, after a great start, was racing with Bottas. We didn't want to get undercut so we pitted quite aggressively with him to make sure we stayed ahead of him, but thereafter we seemed to struggle with pace, so whether there's some damage with the car or not we really need to look into, but it wasn't Sebastian's fault today.'

Dan's calm and controlled third career F1 win leaves him on 156 points, just 35 behind championship contender Hamilton, who stays on 191 points. Rosberg, meanwhile, moves to 220 points as the championship heads towards Monza.