Lewis Hamilton, survived a weather-changing Belgian Grand Prix and notched a very important victory for the championship at the Spa-Francorchamps circuits in the Ardennes forest.Throughout the 44-lap race the weather was at the forefront of the teams' strategic calculations, and the shower which fell twice during the race caused a series of crashes and spins, penalties, a frenetic activity in the pits and a safety-car intervention, ensuring a dramatic finale to the grand prix. During the race it seemed that the busiest people in the circuit were the meteorologists and the stewards.
Lewis Hamilton capitalised a shocking slow start from Mark Webber to take the lead into the first corner and he kept leading the race comfortably when race started to fell aga causing him to slip wide through the gravel, nearly missing the wall, after locking up his wheels in Turn 8 with 10 laps to go.
"The Lord definitely had his hand over me there because I was able to get away with it. At the end it was just about nursing the car and bringing it home in one piece. The team did a remarkable job. We are constantly pushing and at some places we are not as fast as these guys [Red Bull] but it is great that when we are close we maximise it so I am very proud of the job they did this weekend and happy to be up here."
Hamilton managed to hold onto the lead through his miscue and hold off Webber when the race resumed after an unrelated safety-car period set up a four-lap dash to the finish. Despite losing the points lead, Webber was pleased to finish second after tumbling all the way to seventh when his car sputtered at the beginning of the race.
Webber commented:
"I had a big bog on the formation lap then we made an adjustment to the clutch which I thought would hopefully get rid of that situation. But I had it even worse on the main start so I was pretty surprised because once you have a 'micro moment' at the start, it is massively exaggerated compared to guys who get normal starts."
Robert Kubica tried to flirt with the 2nd position through the whole race from the start to the finish but in the end he didin't risk to lose a podium finish.
A risk that Sebastien Vettel decided to take against Jenson Button.
Running second and third, respectively, on lap 17, the two drivers tangled when Vettel lost control of his Red Bull on a wet track and slammed hard into the left side of Button's McLaren. Button suffered heavy damage in his right exhaust side and retired in 22nd-place, while Vettel broke his front wing and was forced to a drive-through penalty for causing the accident.
Button explained:
"I don't know what happened. All I felt was a big bang in the sidepod. It ripped the radiator out, I think, and I lost drive completely. It was a very strange incident. I don't know what he was doing really. It's a massive blow - a massive blow. It hurts quite a bit really."
Vettel apologised for his wrong move after the race:
"I tried to out-brake him on the outside. When I changed from the inside to the outside, I lost the car under braking on the bump and then I then I couldn't really control it anymore and unfortunately crashed into him."
But, The Red Bull driver's situation due to his impatience only grew worse from there, later cutting down a tire from contact with Vitantonio Liuzzi.
Vettel remained third in the standings but is now 31 points out of the lead.
Alonso had another race full with troubles. Starting only 10th due to his misjudgement to race last qualifying session on hard tyres he experienced a collision with Rubens Barrichello during the slippery opening lap and struggling in the middle of the filed ended with a spin crash on lap 38 of 44.
It was an awful weekend for the title weekend as Sebastian Vettel, Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso - who begun the race within 20 points from the lead as the championship seems to be a two horse battle between Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton.
Felipe Massa and Adrian Sutil rounded out the top five in a trouble-free race. Yet after a footage provided by a fan on Youtube.com after the race it was proveds that Massa had started the race outside his grid position but noone of the marshals, including race director Charlie Whiting or the electronic system on the grid picked up the error. Later Massa admitted that he was lucky for not having a penalty blaming his low sitting position for his mistake.
Nico Rosberg, Michael Schumacher, Kamui Kobayashi, Vitaly Petrov and Tonio Liuzzi filled out the top 10 but they had a harder work to do. Especially for the case of Liuzzi, he inherited 20th position after a 20s penalty given to Jaime Alguersuari who cut a cornet in order to pass the Italian Force India driver.
Rubens Barrichello who was celebrating his awesome 300th Grand Prix starts without missing any race since his debut in 1993 had a dull retirement in the opening lap after a collision with Fernando Alonso.
