Jolyon Palmer's GP2 Diary - Belgium

After a few weeks off we returned to action at Spa, one of the best and fastest tracks on the calendar.

In the races we had an interesting situation whereby most of the front guys used a prime-prime strategy in the feature race. This is the fastest way to do the race but it meant that only James Calado and Julian Leal started the sprint race on Sunday with new prime tyres and the rest of the top ten all only had used tyres. This meant that the race was pretty much only between those two and everyone else who started at the front was just trying to hang on from the people starting on the edge or outside of the top ten, including myself, who could come through with new tyres having saved a set the day before. I had a good race, coming through to finish 6th from 15th on the grid. Unfortunately a couple of guys on used tyres had managed to build too big a gap in the first half of the race whilst I was stuck in traffic but I was happy to come away from the weekend with some points. I watched the races back and as usual there was plenty of action. One thing that has surprised me a bit this season, is that Calado and Daniel Abt seem often quite critical of their team, ART. ART is the most successful team ever in GP2 and has got many drivers through to F1 such as Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Nico Hulkenberg, Jules Bianchi and Esteban Gutierrez. Last year they were very close to taking the teams title and only DAMS could narrowly pip them. This year the rules haven't changed. There are slightly revised tyres from Pirelli but that is the only difference. I find it hard to believe a team like ART has really missed something; they have no doubt had a very disappointing year though. Again at Spa, despite getting a well-deserved 2013 race win, it was strange to hear on the team radio that instead of being very happy with the result and being pumped up by the win, Calado was moaning about how difficult the race was and how bad the car was. Anyway his win made the title race extremely interesting though with three rounds to go and any of the top five or six could still take the title. For me I have to accept it's not going to happen but I will push hard and try and take another win or two before the season ends. I stayed to watch some of the F1 on Sunday but left halfway through to beat the traffic back to Calais. I don't think I missed much in the race though, most of the passes were done on the straight using DRS, instead of through exciting GP2 style race craft, and I don't find that at all entertaining to watch. DRS on tracks like Spa isn't good for racing and it sums it up when Hamilton let Fernando Alonso pass him on purpose at La Source just so he could have DRS up the hill out of Eau Rouge. On some tracks DRS can be helpful but I think with Pirelli tyres you don't always need DRS to improve the racing. I would much rather see fewer overtakes but more wheel-to-wheel scrapping and drivers having to work harder to overtake. Anyway after a long delay at the Channel Tunnel I managed to get back on Sunday night and overall was upbeat with my weekend. Monza is up next which has always been one of my best tracks so I'm looking forward to getting going again in two weeks' time. JP Follow Jolyon on Twitter: @JolyonPalmer