It was the week it all came together for Force India, despite occasionally threatening to all fall apart.
The record books in years to come will look back on the 2009 Belgian Grand Prix and coldly record Force India's first pole position, with a lap of 1:46.308, before scoring the team's first race points with a second place, less than a second away from victor Kimi Raikkonen.
What those books won't do is tell you the story behind the race in which Giancarlo Fisichella took the first real glory for the Silverstone based team since 2003 when he won in Brazil, and the team were called Jordan.
Even before a wheel had been turned in anger there was a cloud over the Force India team, with rumours surrounding Fisichella moving into the second Ferrari seat in time for his and Ferrari's home Grand Prix in Monza, gaining steam. The Italian himself admitted that a drive in the famous scarlet cars would be a dream, but was still quick to point out his focus was on Spa and the job he had to do with Force India. These rumours were only reinforced by Vijay Mallya's team's financial woes, with his other companies losing money, and Force India still owing Ferrari money from their short lived engine deal.
However, progress had still been made. There were more updates for the car.
After steady improvement through the European races that straddle F1's summer, with Adrian Sutil's performance at the Nurburgring no doubt being the high point, despite the disappointing result.
Chief among these new upgrades, and certainly the most noticeable, was a new spec front wing, more complex than the previous design, and so the team hoped the key to a successful weekend at a track that was expected to keep team's guessing on set-up thanks to the lack of testing and the season's new aerodynamic regulations.
The weekend got underway in typical Spa style, with rain limiting worthwhile running in the opening practice on Friday morning, with Fisichella and Sutil combining to only run 21 laps for eleventh and sixteenth respectively.
Second practice was more promising, with more than double the running and more promising results, the Italian sixth, the German thirteenth. The team's hopes of surviving until Q2 were looking as if they might come true.
