Race start, Spa-Francorchamps, 2022

Rate the race: 2022 Belgian Grand Prix

2022 Belgian Grand Prix

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What did you think of today’s race? Share your verdict on the Belgian Grand Prix.

RaceFans has held polls on every F1 race since 2008 to find out which fans thought of each round of the season.

Join in the latest poll and give your verdict on the race: 10 being the highest and 1 the lowest. Please vote based on how entertaining and exciting you thought the race was, not on how your preferred driver or team performed.

What were the best and worst moments of the race? What was the main thing you’ll remember about it? Rate the race out of ten and leave a comment below:

Rate the 2022 Belgian Grand Prix out of 10

  • 10 (3%)
  • 9 (3%)
  • 8 (15%)
  • 7 (17%)
  • 6 (17%)
  • 5 (15%)
  • 4 (15%)
  • 3 (9%)
  • 2 (3%)
  • 1 (4%)

Total Voters: 186

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1 = ‘Terrible’, 10 = ‘Perfect’

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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71 comments on “Rate the race: 2022 Belgian Grand Prix”

  1. Pretty average for Spa-Francorchamps, I expected more.

    1. Average? My God you are easily pleased it was a bore…

    2. Yup, pretty average, drs was a problem as usual. Lovely looking place, especially in the 90’s therefore I loved seeing some gravel back but the rebuilding did not fix the worst safety issues and lets be honest reputation aside I do not remember any trully amazing dry races here.

  2. We are used to see driver 44th illegally denying the space, and causing collisions where the other guy’s car gets totalled while the Merc goes on unscathed. Well, it went the other way around this time, poetic justice and all that. Only missing real justice in the shape of a well-deserved penalty. That would have been worth a 9 for the race. Without it, a 7.

    1. stupidity of a biased anti fan

      1. At least Lewis admitted it was his fault this time.

      2. Jelle van der Meer (@)
        28th August 2022, 15:49

        You like Mystic One are the worst of the Lewis fans – have a wonderful year

        1. orange anti fan, be happy that your beloved Max achieves a real title this year

          1. Jelle van der Meer (@)
            28th August 2022, 16:01

            Go cry me a river you sad Lewis fan

          2. I think you mean the FIA have arranged car specs to ensure Red Bull win? If Masi had allowed Hamilton to win the last race he led from start to cheat, maybe he would have retired anyway!

          3. There’s no more deserved title than 2021 in recent decades, slightly inferior car against a strong driver.

      3. “ABL”, we always say. Al’s on-air comment accurate, indeed. He took “The Walk Of Shame.”

      4. Itsmeagain (@)
        28th August 2022, 15:51

        It’s romtrain again. No further explanation is needed about bias.

        1. as your anti ham bias is readable from close to every comment of yours.

          1. Itsmeagain (@)
            28th August 2022, 16:24

            Dear Romtrain, probably you are not realizing what you post about RB, Horner and Max in the past. The ‘anti’ is in your veins. I read you name under every article about them, and of course without any arguments. Please, get used to it that there are people who are watching in a more objective way but are being annoyed by fans like…. Yep, you know who I mean.

          2. you and objective? nice try

        2. Yes, true, one doesn’t have to be anti-hamilton etc. to notice the massive bias.

    2. hyoko = classic toxic anti lewis troll baiting for replies who tend to post in the aftermath of races on racefans

    3. It’s in lap 1 which drivers is more allowed and the one causing the accident was the one stopping with damage.. so action needed.

  3. Well, the first few laps were ok.

    4.

    1. OK if you like drivers speeding to site of the accident!

  4. BLS (@brightlampshade)
    28th August 2022, 15:36

    Brutally fast drive from Verstappen but an otherwise fairly dire race by Spa standards. Better than last year at least…..

    1. Such a shame about last year’s race conduct, what a race it could’ve been with that amount of rain. I miss the 90s, when they let them race in those conditions.

  5. Was going to rate it a 5 but then Ferrari provided some comedic relief in the last two laps so increased it to a 6.

    1. Ferrari never fail to deliver on that front.

      This one’s on Leclerc though. Not Ferrari.

    2. What was the comedic relief? Actually, it was great strategy and perfect timing as they used ALO for some extra speed.

      1. Two reasons. First, they were never going to beat Verstappen’s time and it wasn’t even close despite all the advantage of low fuel, new soft tyres, and DRS. Second, they sped through the pitlane and that cost Leclerc a place to Alonso. Not that it matters, but it was pretty silly.

    3. lol, came here to say exactly the same thing x)
      Ludicrousness at its finest! 1 point bump, hands down.

  6. As a race, extremely boring. Was considering turning off around lap 25.

    1. My other half nodded off !

    2. For a while I wondered if the rest of the field had taken out the F2 cars by mistake, they were so slow compared to VER.

  7. Verstappen was in another world. Expected a long race of him recovering to a probable podium but being in a commanding winning position from so early was really impressive. If this is indicative of Red Bull’s pace for the remainder of the year he’s going to be putting in some other rather surprising drives too.

    I was really happy to see Albon hang on to 10th for another point for Williams. He’s doing a quiet but really good job with that car.

    1. His start position on the grid helped a bit?

  8. It was an extremely interesting race.
    In the first lap.
    Othwerwise an average race with no real competition for the win.

  9. I’ll drop this: Spa is overrated. Not the track, but races themselves.
    I can’t remember an exciting race here since 2008 (probably 2019?).
    They should scrap Drs for this track, it makes overtaking ridiculously easy.

    1. Well, at least to me, the 2nd sector is what’s overrated. No wonder it is not part of the original track. But the worst of all is that abhorrent final chicane. It just doesn’t belong. Unfortunately, because of safety regs and all we can’t have La Source to be the last corner as it once was. And, yes, DRS ruins everything there.

      1. Wow, didn’t know la source used to be the last corner!

      2. @niefer Amen to that. The final chicane (once busstop) is as horrible as the first chicane at Monza, completely out of order.

        1. @matthijs – Yes!! Along with Variante Ascari, they kill the whole track flow to me.

    2. I agree. Actually wouldn’t mind seeing the back of this race until DRS is removed. Make it a challenging race again.

      A bit like Monaco for me, fantastic circuit but doesn’t really produce the goods on race day. Was falling asleep with ten to go.

      1. I think the magic of spa was the rain, 1995, 1997, 1998, 2008 for example, there’s probably more, but on the dry yes, drs is too powerful, verstappen seemed to have quite some easy time already before drs was enabled scything through the field!

  10. F1 racing at Spa-Francorchamps will always be visually appealing. But, this race was pretty terrible and highlighted a lot of flaws in the series. Not just Pérez, but the whole of Ferrari, Mercedes and Alpine must be embarrassed after being so thoroughly outclassed. What are these people doing? What are they spending all those millions on? An awful performance from everyone involved.

    And then F1 goes and makes a mockery of the track by introducing all these DRS passing lanes that result in either completely forgettable fly by’s, or for those unfortunate enough to be in the midfield, endless trains that can’t pass. The aero regulations have clearly failed to make the cars more raceable. A bunch of racer-run teams in Indycar can make it work for a fraction of the cost, yet these F1 geniuses spend the better part of a decade and hundreds of millions developing cars to come up with their own ‘solution’. And not only does it not work, it also has the cars bumping around causing potential long term damage to the drivers.

    1. MichaelN Modern F1 cars have outgrown this dated track and makes a snoozefest race as it takes away most of the driver challenge. One example is the first sector is basically one braking zone. Obviously every race cannot be a Saudi mad max type circuit but its sad that this track stays as it is virtually a second home track for the orange army..

  11. Err… ??? So we shouldn’t thinking about which race was the worst in this year because it’s easily won. We saw an interesting grid, Verstappen had a great driving skill, Ocon and Leclerc showed us some interesting overtake at Fagne and at Bus Stop chicane and we se an another one Albon train but nothing memorable happened. DRS was too powerful. Unlike at Saudi GP they could overtook each other but they could take back their positsion in the next lap. Now it didn’t happened. 4/10 – Spa had way better races like in 2010, 2011, 2005, ect.

  12. 10, just for Max masterclass.

  13. Probably would’ve been better without DRS. Almost surely in fact. As it was, pretty much zero suspense. But you know, luckily here’s a solution I’ve just thought up: let’s give out points for practice sessions, that’ll spice things up. Ok, but seriously, various mistakes etc aside, Ferrari started the year beautifully and have since been massively out-developed by Red Bull, and Perez is not on the same plane as Verstappen, so that’s the season in a nutshell. Ready to press ‘next’ really.

    1. But the thing is ferrari always gets outdeveloped by their opponent, be it mercedes or red bull, and since perez is bottas, the result is then predictable.

  14. It was surprisingly pretty poor and generally underwhelming. A harsh 4/10 from me,but there wasn’t anything to look for really (bar the Albon-Stroll-Ricc.etc train). Generally Spa hasn’t delivered good races for a while,but i hoped the new regs would make the racing better, but sadly this wasn’t the case

  15. 4/10. Your average Sunday.

  16. I’ve never been bored watching a race at spa in close to 40 years of watching.
    These cars, the DRS trains, the lack of real tactical battles and reliance on gimmicks….

    It just takes away all the suspense when you can predict the moves ahead of time. I could’ve gotten 5 out of the top six finishers correct before the lights went out. And when the grid is that mixed up, it really shouldn’t be that way. I got the podium right too. The only reason the 6th car was wrong was because Hamilton messed up an overtake.

    4/10 just because of the track.

    1. Same here, turn volume down and do other things but watch when loudmoth croft screams as something might happen…

      Cant remember the last time spa had a good race?

    2. The 2020 one was worse because everybody had the same strategy

  17. I gave it a 4 as it was a race that promised more than it delivered with a bit of a mixed up grid.

    A combination of DRS been very powerful, A big-ish delta between the tyre compounds & a lot of tyre deg produced a lot of action but it didn’t really produce much actually exciting racing.

    I’ve said every year since 2011 that I think the Kemmel straight is a place where DRS was never needed. It was a place where we saw good racing & a good amount of overtaking without it & I think it’s been obvious since DRS was introduced in 2011 that all having a DRS zone there does is making passing too easy. I think that has hurt the quality of the racing at Spa more than anything else to be honest.

    1. It’s no coincidence that Spa-Francorchamps has not seen many memorable races since the introduction of DRS. In RaceFans’ ranking, the track is 21th on average Rate the Race score (helped a bit by last year’s half-points fiasco).

      Putting a DRS zone at an already popular overtaking spot is silly, but F1 doesn’t care about that.

    2. That’s very true, was expecting better from such a race, and yes, drs is to blame for the last few years’ races not being interesting.

  18. Seemed a bit tame. Didn’t feel any real excitement after the opening lap, the race just seemed to plod through the motions until the end, with an occasional moment here and there but no prolonged intensity.

    But there were some highlights and some good moves, so gave it a six.

  19. If Monaco is the soul of F1 (and it is), then Spa is it’s beating heart.
    A very good race, even though RB were uncontested. Many good overtakes, especially the ones where the outdated and unnecessary DRS wasn’t used.

  20. Ok so the win was Verstappens to win already on P3, everyone should have known that, and without DRS it could have been alittle bit harder for the guys in the back to catch up.
    Leclerc would had been top 4 or 3 if the first pitstop didnt put him back, he and verstappen was clearly quicker on the softs at the beginning of the race.

    There was some good racing around Albon most of the race and it feels like more people should had gone with higher speed rather than sector two in mind.

    Sector two is really nice to drive and see but all theese quick corners are the worst thing about F1 as it is, no one can pass due to the high speeds.
    Ferrari’s car is best in slow and acceleration so they really did just have two corners on the whole track in favor.

    I would say decent race, with extra points for Albon, the Alpines and great to se Aston Martin with a little bit of speed.
    6/10

  21. 1/10 complete snoozefest.

    proves how cr*p F1 can be without Lewis/solid competition at the front.
    Barring the pathetic WWE ending 2021 was one of the most exciting seasons with multiple teams winning and a nail biting title fight all year . Now its a borefest with wunderkind a million points ahead driving into the sunset whilst everyone else fights for scraps.

    congrats ross brawn for the rubbish reg change(!)

    1. I think the multiple teams winning comment is slightly exagerated, alpine win was a fluke, mclaren and ferrari were in with the occasional win chance, like mercedes this year, it just never had the circumstances needed.

  22. Surprisingly dull given the grid lineup we had. They really need to abolish DRS on the Kemmel straight (at least). There were some good slipstreaming passes in the first few laps but after that they were almost entirely slam-dunk passes where the overtaking car could reclaim the racing line before the corner.

    For the life of me, I can’t understand why F1 has never experimented with the DRS format. It’s like they saw 2011, realised that there were lots of passes, and called it a day. If they are willing to ‘trial’ things like sprint races, then please also ‘trial’ races without DRS on certain tracks, or with an Indycar style push to pass where drivers can pick and choose when to use their DRS allocation. Without that, we are destined to watch a combination of easy DRS passes and midfield DRS trains for eternity.

  23. 4. By the half way point I was flipping between the race and a Premier League game.
    While we all knew that Max would move to the front and challenge for a podium position, it was so quick and easy that any drama was removed from the race by the 10th lap. Maybe he should have been called Thanos in this race because his winning it was inevitable.

    1. Absolutely, his win was never in doubt unless he had a mechanical failure, which is always around the corner, or got tangled in some incident, but when there’s such superiority both chances become lower.

  24. I gave it 8 but I think in retrospect it should’ve been a 7, it indeed underdelivered for what could be expected from so many quick drivers starting quite in the back, drs should be removed at kemmel, agree with the others who said that, and while there were plenty of passes, verstappen’s win was never in doubt since he was 8th on lap 1 with the field bunched up, I felt like sainz could keep perez behind since he had 1 sec on him for half the race, then suddenly got overtaken and no one could really challenge any red bull, quite some scraps in the midfield though, with some double overtakes by ocon.

  25. 6/10. I don’t think this race does Spa many favours.

    The first 10 laps were quite exciting, then it became mediocre. No real action in the last 20 laps other than DRS passes. Ocon’s move on Vettel and Gasly was quite good though.

    The Red Bull’s seemed in a different class though on this circuit and the Ferraris looked slow. Sainz in particular. A bit disappointing. Great if you’re a Max fan I guess. Not so good for the rest of us.

    Bring on 2023.

    1. By the way, how so many people gave this an 8 I shall never know.

  26. It has been a long time ago since I just stopped watching a race and let it run in the background. I did not enjoy this one at all. Great job by Red Bull and Max, but I fear this dominance will continue until at least the end of the season.

  27. My favourite moment was Schumacher passing Latifi right down in the bottom of Eau Rouge, not quite any of the spots I remember seeing passes before. I found it brave, precise and quick. If you can find it, take another look.

  28. Spa is the new hungaroring because of the change in regulations. Hungaroring produces more interesting races now.

  29. DRS was too powerful and spoiled what could have been some tense battles but otherwise not a terrible race.

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