You can “turn up” the engine to achieve higher performance at the cost of engine life. I’ve heard one party mode lap is the equivalent of 20 regular laps.Can someone ELIA (Explain Like I'm American) this party mode ban?
Interesting that McLaren outqualified Renault, considering how strong Renault were at Spa. Did Renault suffer more from the party mode ban, or do McLaren have less drag? Or is this all luck o’ the slipstream? Hamilton had the (slight? he left a decent gap) slipstream to Bottas throughout and only beat him by .069.
LeClerc’s Q2 lap looked pretty clean, he just didn’t have the speed. Vettel was tripping over Russell by T2, so no chance to improve his first Q1 time. Gasly en fuego but a mistake in Q3.
Odd that Ocon was called to the stewards for blocking Kimi (as BBC framed it) when Kimi compromised everyone’s Q1 by trying to cut everyone in line for the second run, screwing up spacing and probably tire prep. He’s normally a very fair racer. If he didn’t want to deal with the queue or dirty air, Alfa could have just sent him out earlier, like Ferrari did with LeClerc.