ROUND 14: 🇧🇪 Belgium
FORMULA 1 ROLEX BELGIAN GRAND PRIX 2024
Circuit stats
- Circuit name: Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps
- First Grand Prix: 1950
- Number of laps: 44
- Circuit Length: 7.004 km
- Race Distance: 308.052 km
- Lap record: 1:46.286 Valtteri Bottas (2018)
- 2023 winner: Max Verstappen
Track Map
4 points
This is only guess and speculation
- visibility. When its wet enough for the full wets, the drivers can’t see well enough to be safe. They are not going to slow down just because they can’t see.
- general safety. When it is wet enough for full wets, the cars are so low they can still easily aquaplane unexpectedly.
- the show. If its wet enough for full wets, they’re going to be fighting more with the car than each other and the spray will make the cars hard to see.
2 points
Visibility is the main reason. These ground effect cars create huge rooster tails in wet conditions which completely ruins visibility. Combine that with a wet tyre that has a very narrow operating window (something Pirelli has been criticized for over the past few years) and you’ll get the situation you describe: the window where the full wets are actually faster but it’s still raceable is vanishingly small.
