| 2013 Belgian Grand Prix | |||||
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Race 11 of 19 in the2013 Formula One World Championship
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 Layout of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit | |||||
| Race details[1] | |||||
| Date | 25 August 2013 | ||||
| Official name | 2013 Formula 1 Shell Belgian Grand Prix[2] | ||||
| Location | Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps Francorchamps,Wallonia,Belgium[3] | ||||
| Course | Permanent racing facility | ||||
| Course length | 7.004 km (4.352 miles) | ||||
| Distance | 44 laps, 308.052 km (191.415 miles) | ||||
| Weather | Cloudy | ||||
| Pole position | |||||
| Driver | Mercedes | ||||
| Time | 2:01.012 | ||||
| Fastest lap | |||||
| Driver |  Sebastian Vettel | Red Bull-Renault | |||
| Time | 1:50.756 on lap 40 | ||||
| Podium | |||||
| First | Red Bull-Renault | ||||
| Second | Ferrari | ||||
| Third | Mercedes | ||||
Lap leaders | |||||
The2013 Belgian Grand Prix (formally known as the2013 Formula 1 Shell Belgian Grand Prix)[2] was aFormula Onemotor race on 25 August 2013 at theCircuit de Spa-Francorchamps, near the village ofFrancorchamps,Wallonia,Belgium.[4] It was the eleventh round of the2013 season, and the 69th running of theBelgian Grand Prix.
The race was won bySebastian Vettel in aRed Bull-Renault in a time of 1:23:42, registering an average speed of 220.80 km/h, thus extending his championship lead to 46 points. Second wasFernando Alonso in aFerrari, and third wasLewis Hamilton (who had started from pole) in aMercedes.[5][6]This was the first of 9 straight victories for Vettel, a Formula One record at the time.
Like the2012 Belgian Grand Prix, tyre supplier Pirelli brought its orange-banded hard compound tyre as the harder "prime" tyre and the white-banded medium compound tyre as the softer "option" tyre.
Mercedes had taken 7 of the last 8 poles, but in practice,Red Bull had appeared to be the fastest team. A rain shower hit the track right before qualifying got underway, dropping the air temperature to only 22 °C and mixing things up even further.
All the drivers started the session with intermediates,Lewis Hamilton set the first benchmark of 2:07.008. As the track continued drying,Nico Rosberg,Mark Webber, andSebastian Vettel all hit the front briefly. After the midpoint, most drivers pitted for a new set of intermediate tyres whileGiedo van der Garde took a gamble to switch onto the slicks. As times passing by, lap times improved rapidly, nearly pushing bothFerraris out of Q2. ButFernando Alonso managed to set the fastest time at the last moment, and his team-mateFelipe Massa also made it into the next session. Van der Garde's decision proved a big success, for he impressively finished 3rd. In fact, three of the four drivers fromCaterham andMarussia squeezed into Q2, the only one that failed to do so wasCharles Pic, who started the race from the last place on the grid. Also eliminated were theWilliams duo, the twoToro Rossos, and theSauber ofEsteban Gutiérrez.
At the beginning of the 15-minute period, drivers were divided into 2 groups, most of them used mediums, while several others, including Webber and Alonso, chose the hards. In the opening phase, Webber and Alonso were fighting for the top spot, their gap being merely two-thousandths of a second. At the same time, Vettel and Hamilton stayed in the pits until there were about 7 minutes left on the board. After that it was time for mediums, first the twoLotuses, then Sebastian Vettel, all challenging for the first place. But finally, Kimi Räikkönen put the fight to an end with a 1:48.296. Eliminated in Q2 were Sauber'sNico Hülkenberg,Force India'sAdrian Sutil,McLaren'sSergio Pérez, Caterham's Giedo van der Garde who achieved the team's best qualifying result ever, and both the Marussias.
In fear of the incoming shower, all barPaul di Resta queued at the pit exit with medium tyres. However, just moments later, the Force India driver opted to use the inters. It soon turned out that the latter was right, as the other 9 drivers didn't even start a flying lap as the track was too wet for slicks and they had to pit immediately. Di Resta then set the fastest lap time, with Felipe Massa in second. Just when it looked like he was going to take his maiden pole position, the track started to dry out. As there were 3 minutes left, Räikkönen gave the first shot to come to 3rd, ahead of Alonso. And Rosberg behind them posted a 2:02.251 to take the provisional pole. But none of them could cross the line before the chequered flag. With the ever-improving track, polesitter would be decided among three that still had one timed lap to go—Webber, Vettel, and Hamilton. Webber finished first to reduce the quickest time by almost a second. Then Vettel beat his teammate by a further one tenth of a second, Lewis Hamilton subsequently secured his fourth successive pole. The Lotuses and the Ferraris had to settle in rows 4 and 5.
Mark Webber suffered clutch problems right from the start and fell from third to sixth after one lap. On the other hand,Jenson Button andFernando Alonso both enjoyed a great getaway, running in fourth and fifth places respectively.Sebastian Vettel had a great run up Eau Rouge and overtook pole-sitterLewis Hamilton down Kemmel Straight on the first lap and quickly took a commanding lead over theMercedes duo. Alonso and Webber both passed Button, and the Spaniard continued to fight his way up the field, overtakingNico Rosberg for third place.Kimi Räikkönen was also working his way up the field, but excessive brake dust was coming out of Finn's left front wheel at an early stage in the race.
On the eighth lap,Sergio Pérez was handed a drive through penalty for forcingRomain Grosjean off the track. As a result, Grosjean had to straightline Les Combes and fell from eight to tenth asFelipe Massa took advantage. Räikkönen's brakes ultimately failed as the Finn went off massively at the Chicane, nearly collecting Massa in the process. TheLotus driver retired the car, which meant that his record run of consecutive points finishes ended at 27. It was later discovered that a loose visor tear-off got stuck inside the left front brake duct, causing the disc to overheat.[7] After the first round of pit stops, Hamilton successfully retained second place from Alonso, but the latter quickly found his way through.
Further down the order, a battle involvingEsteban Gutiérrez,Pastor Maldonado, and theForce India duo was raging. As the four cars were approaching the final chicane, the young Mexican successfully made his move on bothAdrian Sutil and Maldonado. The German tried to follow but clipped theWilliams driver's front wing. Maldonado dove for the pits only to collect the second Force India ofPaul di Resta. As a result, the Venezuelan had to pit for a new front wing and received a ten seconds stop-and-go penalty while di Resta retired his car on the spot.
Vettel won the race, ahead of Alonso and Hamilton.Nico Rosberg successfully fought off Webber for fourth, finishing less than three seconds behind his teammate. Button took sixth forMcLaren, while the race-long scrap between Massa and Grosjean ended with the Brazilian in front for seventh. Sutil andDaniel Ricciardo took ninth and tenth respectively.
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Greenpeace used the Belgian Grand Prix as a main point of protests againstShell, a principal sponsor of the race.Greenpeace activists went to the track and put up a number of banners protesting againstShell drilling in theArctic.[11] These included two remote controlled banners which scrolled up in front of thepodium celebrations,[12] which were quickly disposed of by security, and a large banner on the maingrandstand. The official world feedbroadcast did not show any banner in detail.[13][14]
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