With the new generation of cars, Spa could become a fallen noble. What was once one of the most fascinating and challenging tracks of the year risks losing some of its most famous corners, all due to energy management logic. The alarm is raised by Lando Norris, who does not even show much optimism about the possibility of recovering the ten grid penalty positions he will serve.
Another Spa
“It’s a shame, it definitely won’t be the same Spa as always”, comments Norris when asked what to expect this weekend. “We’ll see how it will be at Pouhon and the other corners, but it certainly won’t be the challenge it has always been. Depending on how power is used, some might push more than others at Pouhon, but we are still short of energy on this track, so it won’t be the same. In the past, any driver would have said this was among their top 3-4 favorite tracks on the calendar and it has been so since we were kids. It’s a shame it’s reduced to whatever it will turn out to be. We all love being here, but we also love driving cars that don’t depend on batteries.”
According to simulations, teams will use the electric motor mainly on the straights of the first and third sectors, draining the entire battery. This means the power units will have to recover energy in the central sector, finding themselves not only without the extra electric boost but also with fewer useful horsepower from the thermal engine, which in those moments will work as a generator to recharge the battery. The result is that some of the most demanding corners could be lost, with drivers able to take them at full throttle simply because the cars will arrive there much more slowly. “Probably Pouhon will be taken easily at full throttle, because we won’t have power”, reveals Norris. “All this is disappointing.”
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Possible comeback, but difficult
Adding to Lando’s low morale is the 10-place grid penalty he will have to serve after McLaren decided to install the fourth power electronics unit. The world champion does not appear particularly optimistic about the comeback: “We have to wait to see how overtaking will be. Most drivers will drain the battery on the straight towards turn 5, going from 100% to 0% charge. We have a slight speed advantage on the straight compared to our rivals who are a bit behind, so we should have good chances to overtake them. In general, however, overtaking here could be quite difficult.”
With only two important straights, teams will tend to converge on energy management strategies, flattening speed differences between the various cars and complicating overtaking. On the other hand, the sections to be tackled with closed wings will help Norris: “The slipstream is quite powerful. There are some straights where active aerodynamics will be disabled, so the slipstream is fairly strong and you can gain quite a bit. I don’t have all the answers, but it’s definitely better to serve the penalty here than in Budapest or Zandvoort.”
