Horsepower will take Spa win

Formula 1 resumes after its summer break at that most glorious of tracks, Spa-Francorchamps, with the Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Just over halfway through a season confirmed as being 19 races long this week - after FIA inspectors gave the Sochi circuit the green light - a few things have already been decided.

The drivers' championship will be a straight shootout between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg, with their Mercedes team romping away with the constructors' title.

Most rival teams appear to have thrown in the towel on development of the 2014 car, with the possible exception of Williams, for whom Valtteri Bottas has proved a revelation this season.

The flying young Finn, whose car is also powered by a Mercedes engine, has shown ever-improving skill and consistency and the long and difficult Spa track will provide him with possibly his best chance yet of a maiden victory.

"In theory I think Spa and Monza should be the next really good ones for us, maybe the best opportunities of the season," said Bottas.

"But we also need to be strong in other places. We can't just rely on our good top speed."

Williams performance boss Rob Smedley agrees. "Both tracks will suit our car very well - mainly because the power sensitivity at those tracks is very high. Every horsepower you have is worth more there than at other tracks."

Bottas, who turns 25 next Thursday, will soon feel like an old man with the news that 16-year-old Max Verstappen will take Jean-Eric Vergne's seat at Toro Rosso next season. He'll be 17 by then, but might still require dad Jos - a former F1 driver himself - to give him a lift back to the hotel after races as he will not be old enough to get a road licence in his native Holland.

The remaining eight races of the year are split evenly between traditional F1 circuits (Spa, Monza in a fortnight, Suzuka a month after that and São Paulo on November 9) and places that have shown Bernie Ecclestone enough money to get a spot on the calendar.

What effect that will have on the Hamilton-Rosberg battle is anyone's guess, but with each race of this new quieter, "greener" era of F1, the extent to which the sport is being drained of its essence is apparent.

It is hard not to agree with Hamilton - who goes into the weekend 11 points behind his teammate - when he slammed the sport for becoming too slow and too easy for drivers.

"Personally, I'm not a huge admirer of the direction that everything's going in, in the sense that the cars get slower every year so physically it's easier for me in the car," said Hamilton.

It is a sentiment most fans would agree with.