(Pirelli Motorsport Media)
Infiniti Red Bull Racing's Daniel Ricciardo took his second victory in row at today's Belgian Grand Prix at the Spa Francorchamps circuit. The Australian used a two stop strategy to finish the race just ahead of Mercedes championship leader Nico Rosberg. The Australian started the race on the Pirelli P Zero Yellow marked Soft tyre before switching to a second set of the P Zero Yellow Soft tyre before finishing the race on the While walled Medium tyre.
Ricciardo set his fastest lap of the race on the final lap of the Grand Prix and finished the race 3.3s ahead of Nico Rosberg's Mercedes.
Rosberg went on a different strategy to Ricciardo starting the race on the Soft tyre before making two stops for the Medium tyre before stopping one final time for a set of the Soft compound tyre. Williams Valtteri Bottas finished the race on a set of the Medium compound tyre which mean that he was able to overtake Kimi Raikkonen towards the end of the race to claim his fourth podium finish of the season.
Raikkonen completed the most number of laps of anyone on the Medium tyre as the Finn managed 23 laps on that tyre, while the Marussia F1 Team's Jules Bianchi completed the most number of laps 22 on the Soft compound tyre.
Speaking following the race Pirelli Motorsport Director Paul Hembery commented:
'Track and ambient temperatures were higher than they had been up to now during the weekend, which meant that we saw a little less life out of the soft tyre than we had initially predicted. But considering the demands of this circuit and the nature of the soft and medium compounds that we had chosen to bring, wear and degradation was still well within expectations. It was interesting to see the different strategies at work, especially with the extra speed of the soft tyre. In retrospect, there were probably more drivers who wished they had used the soft for a third pit stop, but our calculations from yesterday indicated that two stops was the best way to go – and we got a very exciting race.'
© Ben Johnston 2014
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