Sebastian Vettel took Belgium by storm and didn’t put a foot wrong on his way to the top step of the podium.
After a qualifying session which saw the weather throw a spanner in the works, a drying track seconds before the chequered came out saw both Red Bulls and Lewis Hamilton put in storming laps to take the front of the grid; the latter on his fifth pole.
The start was clean and everyone made it around the sharp hairpin that is Turn 1. Vettel got off to a good start and was past Hamilton on the very first lap. Hamilton lost another position to Fernando Alonso on lap 6. As early as then, the Lotus cars were spewing black brake dust and the team warned them over the radio to change the bias. The first of the pit stops happened on lap 10 with Felipa Massa, Nico Hulkenberg, Paul DiResta and Lewis Hamilton coming in. More DRS battles ensued with Grosjean and Hamilton on laps 13 and 14. Vettel only came in on lap 15.
On lap 26, Kimi Raikkonen ran wide under braking and then retired his Lotus with brake problems, ending two streaks: 38 consecutive race finishes and a record 27 consecutive finishes in the points. A couple of laps later, Maldonado misjudged a pass and hit Sutil, which threw him into DiResta, taking out the Force India. The Williams-driver was handed a 10-second stop-go penalty as a result. It was all action until the chequered flag as Vettel took a comfortable win, having completed a record 2,000 ‘laps lead’ during the race. Fernando Alonso was second for Ferrari. The Ferrari had shown good pace and was it not for a botched Q3, it could have been a very different story. Lewis Hamilton finished third for Mercedes.
With Raikkonen failing to finish, the driver’s championship sees Vettel leading on 197 points, Alonso is second with 151 and Hamilton is now third with 139 points. The constructor’s championship sees Red Bull on 312 points, Mercedes on 235 and Ferrari on 218.
