The big off-track story of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend centred on what was previously known as Force India, and is still - sort of - known as Force India.
Twenty years on from Jordan's first win in the 1998 race at Spa (and its only one-two finish), the team has changed its name once again. It's now, according to the entry list, 'Racing Point Force India Formula One Team' - not a nomenclature that trips readily from the tongue...
But this should be a positive step for my old team, one which is crewed by good people and which consistently punches above its weight. If you look at its performance at Spa, where Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez qualified third and fourth in the wet and then finished sixth and fifth in the race, this is a great example of what a small-to-medium-sized team can achieve in the right circumstances.
But with new owners come new expectations, so is this all about to change? What is the vision for the future?
Lawrence Stroll apparently wants to fulfill the team's true potential, which presumably means going beyond being best of the rest to fighting with the big boys. Jordan was that before, for in 1997-1999 it was a potential podium contender and claimed a number of race wins. It was also on path to even greater success, but to keep up that form and improve it required investment in people and equipment.
As other teams have shown, it takes the same commitment to run at the front but the required investment has a tenfold price tag. More importantly, it takes time because there's no switch that will transform a team's performance overnight. Hopefully the consortium that owns the team has the patience and understands that.
Newly promoted team principal Otmar Szafnauer has been around Formula 1 for a long time. He was closely involved with Honda's effort in the past, and has been at Force India since 2009.
As CEO, as well as team principal, I believe he will be the man signing off on the investments. He has seen how not to do it with Honda, and has been a part of how to do it very well at the level Force India has been at over the past decade or so.
If I were in his shoes, I wouldn't be pushing for huge immediate investment. Instead, I would be looking for consistent investment. The outgoing owners stabilised the team at a time when it was struggling even to exist, but its investment was a bit haphazard.
From day to day, you need to be able to plan and make decisions. If you don't have consistency, then it becomes a very difficult process.
There are two sorts of investment - one in capital equipment and the other in the actual team and car. Both are very important but one can wait and the other can't. Next season is coming and the teams will be in Australia before they know it, so investment in next year's budget to allow the existing group to get on with the new car will be the first thing.
Over the past few years, Force India has always started the season with a basic car, relying on a major upgrade arriving within the first few races. With a better, more consistent budget, it can probably start the season at a higher level and still plan that early-season upgrade on top of that.
Invest in a new windtunnel now and you might just be able to fire it up for the 2022 car
As far as the investment in capital equipment is concerned, as Force India has shown by its current racing form that it has everything it needs to achieve that performance. It probably just needs more of it.
Force India has always had the majority of components manufactured by outside companies. That's not fundamentally wrong, but it means that reacting to situations can sometimes take that little bit longer.
Bringing it all in-house is without doubt the correct way to go, but it will take a whole new management structure to put the operating procedures in place to make that beneficial to performance.
Force India is in a good position premises-wise. The factory is just across the road from Silverstone, and close to that there's quite a few new industrial units that have been built. So expanding into a few of those would not be impossible.
Setting up a machine shop and a composite shop in those new buildings would be relatively easy, but it will take time and commitment. And it would leave the existing premises as the race shop and design and research facility.
Force India also currently uses the Toyota windtunnel facility in Germany after outgrowing its Brackley tunnel. That has quite a small working section, so anything larger than a 50% model would cause problems, and even at that size it would be questionable with outwash front wing endplates and bargeboards - that's why Force India moved to Toyota.
But it's a good little tunnel and I believe the aero department, CFD, rapid prototyping and model making is still done from there.
While using Toyota's windtunnel is adequate for the team now, it will limit it in the future. So this is probably the major area that will need investment. The team has talked in the past about upgrading its own windtunnel, but again, a new windtunnel could be sited near there factory - although this will be a huge investment.
Depending on what you specify it could cost between £30-50million, and it would take time and commitment, so Toyota's facility will be what it will be using for the 2019 and '20 cars - and more importantly the '21 regulation changes.
Invest in a new windtunnel now and you might just be able to fire it up for the 2022 car.
If I was Otmar or technical director Andrew Green, I would be pushing the new owners to keep their feet on the ground and in the short term invest in just doing more of what they do. Don't get too excited by it all and for a year or so, just plug the holes in the structure you currently have, and if there is a piece of equipment that you need to allow you to move forward then invest in it.
During that period get a company to specify a new windtunnel facility, and after everything has settled down you can then make some more informed decisions about what direction you need to go in.
I'm pretty sure that along with Stroll Sr's investment, Lance Stroll will become one of its drivers. Inevitably some are criticising this, but is that all bad? I don't think so.
When Stroll has had the opportunity and the car was reasonable, he has done a good job. You don't win the Formula 3 European championship without talent.
For a young driver coming into F1, if the car is not decent then it is a nightmare. Just look at Stoffel Vandoorne. He is a much, much better driver than he is showing in the McLaren, but when the car is a dog then as a new boy you tend to start to feel the pressure of needing to get in that one good result, and with that you start to overdrive the car.
Stroll is in exactly the same position, he had hoped for much more from this season and his frustration is now starting to boil over.
If the FIA and Liberty are looking at where to pitch cost controls, then look no further than Force India
Since Perez is staying on, it means Force india is probably going to lose Ocon to accommodate Stroll. But someone has to go, and good as Ocon, is I believe Perez will be a better tutor for Stroll.
Perez is a well-rounded driver and has a lot of experience. He was the hotshoe at Sauber, then his year at McLaren in 2013 nearly destroyed him, so he understands what Stroll is going through. They are at different times in their careers, so this is all positive. Stroll in a good car could prove to be the surprise of the season.
If the new owners just bide their time and don't get too excited about it all, F1 might also come to them. There have been lots of talks about budget controls, which I'm sorry to say will also mean a reduction in manpower for the big teams.
But 'Racing Point Force India Formula One Team' is a good example of where manpower levels and budget control levels should be set.
It has around 400 staff and operates on a budget of around £100million. If the FIA and Liberty are wondering where to pitch cost controls, look no further than those figures.
Beyond Force India's eye-catching performance in Belgium, Ferrari finally beat Mercedes in a straightforward race to show it has started part two of the 2018 season with the best car.
Before the summer break there wasn't much in it, even though Ferrari had a pace advantage in the final two races. But the performance of Ferrari at Spa will spook Mercedes and especially Lewis Hamilton.
Yes, there was an early safety car after Nico Hulkenberg sent Fernando Alonso flying over the top of Charles Leclerc at the first corner. But by the time that came out Vettel had already overtaken Hamilton.
From when the safety car came in, it was a straight fight to the end and Hamilton was never close enough to worry Vettel.
Hamilton was very disappointed that Vettel could just tow past him on the Kemmel Straight on lap one. He alluded to Ferrari having "a few trick things" on its car - although later he said he wasn't suggesting anything untoward in this statement.
But the longer Hamilton and the Mercedes team keep thinking that way, the further ahead Ferrari will get. After all the years that Mercedes has had the upper hand on engine performance, it would be stupid for it not to believe that someone else can do just as good a job, if not better.
Visibly, Ferrari ran lower rear wing levels than the Mercedes. Other than the tyres, which you can't do much about, the rear wing is just about the next most draggy part of the car. If you can keep the stability under braking and you can reduce its overall cross section, you reduce its downforce but more importantly the drag.
While both Mercedes showed a reasonable amount of rear tyre blistering, Vettel's Ferrari didn't. This again shows that the traction and balance of the Ferrari was kinder to its tyres. That's vitally important on race day.
It's interesting to look at who has made the most progress, so I've compared the teams' performances over the last four races before the summer break with their pace at Spa. This is calculated based on each team's fastest lap over a given race weekend, converted to a percentage of the outright fastest and then averaged out.
I know it is only one race and that Q3 (which is where the fastest times usually come) was wet, but still a couple of interesting things popped up to me.
Team performance at Spa
Compared with average of previous four races
Force India -1.073%
Toro Rosso -0.633%
Sauber -0.498%
Ferrari -0.145%
Haas -0.092%
Mercedes -0.040
Williams -0.037%
Red Bull +0.127%
McLaren +0.457%
Renault +0.460%
This shows it pays to go into administration and find new owners!
But, more seriously, the fact is that the three teams which all lost performance are the three with Renault engines. I'm not quite sure what that says, since the engine departments are not required to take a break.
I think it shows that the others, including Honda, are more able to improve their performance from how they use the engine as opposed to just installing new power units.
Renault are well behind. And in reality I wouldn't be surprised if Honda is now the third best engine supplier in F1.
That'll be worrying for everyone involved - especially if your name is Daniel Ricciardo.
The big off-track story of the Belgian Grand Prix weekend centred on what was previously known as Force India, and is still - sort of - known as Force India.
Twenty years on from Jordan's first win in the 1998 race at Spa (and its only one-two finish), the team has changed its name once again. It's now, according to the entry list, 'Racing Point Force India Formula One Team' - not a nomenclature that trips readily from the tongue...
But this should be a positive step for my old team, one which is crewed by good people and which consistently punches above its weight. If you look at its performance at Spa, where Esteban Ocon and Sergio Perez qualified third and fourth in the wet and then finished sixth and fifth in the race, this is a great example of what a small-to-medium-sized team can achieve in the right circumstances.
But with new owners come new expectations, so is this all about to change? What is the vision for the future?
Lawrence Stroll apparently wants to fulfill the team's true potential, which presumably means going beyond being best of the rest to fighting with the big boys. Jordan was that before, for in 1997-1999 it was a potential podium contender and claimed a number of race wins. It was also on path to even greater success, but to keep up that form and improve it required investment in people and equipment.
As other teams have shown, it takes the same commitment to run at the front but the required investment has a tenfold price tag. More importantly, it takes time because there's no switch that will transform a team's performance overnight. Hopefully the consortium that owns the team has the patience and understands that.
Newly promoted team principal Otmar Szafnauer has been around Formula 1 for a long time. He was closely involved with Honda's effort in the past, and has been at Force India since 2009.
As CEO, as well as team principal, I believe he will be the man signing off on the investments. He has seen how not to do it with Honda, and has been a part of how to do it very well at the level Force India has been at over the past decade or so.
If I were in his shoes, I wouldn't be pushing for huge immediate investment. Instead, I would be looking for consistent investment. The outgoing owners stabilised the team at a time when it was struggling even to exist, but its investment was a bit haphazard.
From day to day, you need to be able to plan and make decisions. If you don't have consistency, then it becomes a very difficult process.
There are two sorts of investment - one in capital equipment and the other in the actual team and car. Both are very important but one can wait and the other can't. Next season is coming and the teams will be in Australia before they know it, so investment in next year's budget to allow the existing group to get on with the new car will be the first thing.
Over the past few years, Force India has always started the season with a basic car, relying on a major upgrade arriving within the first few races. With a better, more consistent budget, it can probably start the season at a higher level and still plan that early-season upgrade on top of that.
Invest in a new windtunnel now and you might just be able to fire it up for the 2022 car
As far as the investment in capital equipment is concerned, as Force India has shown by its current racing form that it has everything it needs to achieve that performance. It probably just needs more of it.
Force India has always had the majority of components manufactured by outside companies. That's not fundamentally wrong, but it means that reacting to situations can sometimes take that little bit longer.
Bringing it all in-house is without doubt the correct way to go, but it will take a whole new management structure to put the operating procedures in place to make that beneficial to performance.
Force India is in a good position premises-wise. The factory is just across the road from Silverstone, and close to that there's quite a few new industrial units that have been built. So expanding into a few of those would not be impossible.
Setting up a machine shop and a composite shop in those new buildings would be relatively easy, but it will take time and commitment. And it would leave the existing premises as the race shop and design and research facility.
Force India also currently uses the Toyota windtunnel facility in Germany after outgrowing its Brackley tunnel. That has quite a small working section, so anything larger than a 50% model would cause problems, and even at that size it would be questionable with outwash front wing endplates and bargeboards - that's why Force India moved to Toyota.
But it's a good little tunnel and I believe the aero department, CFD, rapid prototyping and model making is still done from there.
While using Toyota's windtunnel is adequate for the team now, it will limit it in the future. So this is probably the major area that will need investment. The team has talked in the past about upgrading its own windtunnel, but again, a new windtunnel could be sited near there factory - although this will be a huge investment.
Depending on what you specify it could cost between £30-50million, and it would take time and commitment, so Toyota's facility will be what it will be using for the 2019 and '20 cars - and more importantly the '21 regulation changes.
Invest in a new windtunnel now and you might just be able to fire it up for the 2022 car.
If I was Otmar or technical director Andrew Green, I would be pushing the new owners to keep their feet on the ground and in the short term invest in just doing more of what they do. Don't get too excited by it all and for a year or so, just plug the holes in the structure you currently have, and if there is a piece of equipment that you need to allow you to move forward then invest in it.
During that period get a company to specify a new windtunnel facility, and after everything has settled down you can then make some more informed decisions about what direction you need to go in.
I'm pretty sure that along with Stroll Sr's investment, Lance Stroll will become one of its drivers. Inevitably some are criticising this, but is that all bad? I don't think so.
When Stroll has had the opportunity and the car was reasonable, he has done a good job. You don't win the Formula 3 European championship without talent.
For a young driver coming into F1, if the car is not decent then it is a nightmare. Just look at Stoffel Vandoorne. He is a much, much better driver than he is showing in the McLaren, but when the car is a dog then as a new boy you tend to start to feel the pressure of needing to get in that one good result, and with that you start to overdrive the car.
Stroll is in exactly the same position, he had hoped for much more from this season and his frustration is now starting to boil over.
If the FIA and Liberty are looking at where to pitch cost controls, then look no further than Force India
Since Perez is staying on, it means Force india is probably going to lose Ocon to accommodate Stroll. But someone has to go, and good as Ocon, is I believe Perez will be a better tutor for Stroll.
Perez is a well-rounded driver and has a lot of experience. He was the hotshoe at Sauber, then his year at McLaren in 2013 nearly destroyed him, so he understands what Stroll is going through. They are at different times in their careers, so this is all positive. Stroll in a good car could prove to be the surprise of the season.
If the new owners just bide their time and don't get too excited about it all, F1 might also come to them. There have been lots of talks about budget controls, which I'm sorry to say will also mean a reduction in manpower for the big teams.
But 'Racing Point Force India Formula One Team' is a good example of where manpower levels and budget control levels should be set.
It has around 400 staff and operates on a budget of around £100million. If the FIA and Liberty are wondering where to pitch cost controls, look no further than those figures.
Beyond Force India's eye-catching performance in Belgium, Ferrari finally beat Mercedes in a straightforward race to show it has started part two of the 2018 season with the best car.
Before the summer break there wasn't much in it, even though Ferrari had a pace advantage in the final two races. But the performance of Ferrari at Spa will spook Mercedes and especially Lewis Hamilton.
Yes, there was an early safety car after Nico Hulkenberg sent Fernando Alonso flying over the top of Charles Leclerc at the first corner. But by the time that came out Vettel had already overtaken Hamilton.
From when the safety car came in, it was a straight fight to the end and Hamilton was never close enough to worry Vettel.
Hamilton was very disappointed that Vettel could just tow past him on the Kemmel Straight on lap one. He alluded to Ferrari having "a few trick things" on its car - although later he said he wasn't suggesting anything untoward in this statement.
But the longer Hamilton and the Mercedes team keep thinking that way, the further ahead Ferrari will get. After all the years that Mercedes has had the upper hand on engine performance, it would be stupid for it not to believe that someone else can do just as good a job, if not better.
Visibly, Ferrari ran lower rear wing levels than the Mercedes. Other than the tyres, which you can't do much about, the rear wing is just about the next most draggy part of the car. If you can keep the stability under braking and you can reduce its overall cross section, you reduce its downforce but more importantly the drag.
While both Mercedes showed a reasonable amount of rear tyre blistering, Vettel's Ferrari didn't. This again shows that the traction and balance of the Ferrari was kinder to its tyres. That's vitally important on race day.
It's interesting to look at who has made the most progress, so I've compared the teams' performances over the last four races before the summer break with their pace at Spa. This is calculated based on each team's fastest lap over a given race weekend, converted to a percentage of the outright fastest and then averaged out.
I know it is only one race and that Q3 (which is where the fastest times usually come) was wet, but still a couple of interesting things popped up to me.
Team performance at Spa
Compared with average of previous four races
Force India -1.073%
Toro Rosso -0.633%
Sauber -0.498%
Ferrari -0.145%
Haas -0.092%
Mercedes -0.040
Williams -0.037%
Red Bull +0.127%
McLaren +0.457%
Renault +0.460%
This shows it pays to go into administration and find new owners!
But, more seriously, the fact is that the three teams which all lost performance are the three with Renault engines. I'm not quite sure what that says, since the engine departments are not required to take a break.
I think it shows that the others, including Honda, are more able to improve their performance from how they use the engine as opposed to just installing new power units.
Renault are well behind. And in reality I wouldn't be surprised if Honda is now the third best engine supplier in F1.
That'll be worrying for everyone involved - especially if your name is Daniel Ricciardo.
