[Pete Parisetti]

If you look at your turn 1 exit you are not using the whole track. This makes you loose speed for the full run through Eau Rouge and up the hill. All that extra speed he is carrying trough Eau Rouge is used to stabilise his speed higher than yours on the straight. The slowest speed he was doing in Eau Rouge was 230 kph whilst yours was 223 kph. At the same time your fastest speed before the drop in speed was 231.

Thats just a small analyse of the first corners really. If this carries on for the full track I can easily see a few seconds there.

I haven't driven this car myself on this track so I don't have much of a reference except for the youtube clip.

Thank you Niklas. Let's think about this. On the section you've analysed, I think it's quite reasonable to say that he is on average 3% faster than me because of the better exit from turn one (I painstakingly checked our speeds at various points and that is the difference). The very long straight takes about 30 seconds, so he would have gained one second (3.33% of 30 seconds) on almost 1.7 km. These long straights are were time is really gained or lost - differences in more bendy parts are fractional. There are two long straights at Spa, so let's imagine that I also drive a sub-optimal line before the second one (which I don't really think I do) and that's another second lost. That makes two seconds. Six? ANOTHER four seconds lost? Come on.

Plus - be patient with me please - as anybody who figures out a track at the beginning I try many slightly different lines, and the difference in time lost or gained is a few tenths at max. Now that I know the track I am consistent within 6 or 7 tenths, lap on lap. It remains inconceivable that by altering lines a little bit here and there you would gain this colossal amount of time. 

Also, the issue remains of why his car gets up to 242 and mine stops at 234. I suspect, as somebody else said, this may be setup. That in itself can be worth at least a couple of seconds on such a long track, and maybe that simply is the answer. What do you think?