Vettel leads Red Bull 1-2 at Spa

F1 Grand Prix, GP Belgium, Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

Sebastian Vettel has won the Belgian GP in his usual dominant fashion, especially in the second half of the race. Mark Webber came in second, completing a perfect result for Red Bull. Jenson Button had a great drive to 3rd while Alonso finishes a solid fourth.

The Spa-Francorchamps track is completely dry at the start of the race, and no rain is expected any time soon.

As the lights go out, Rosberg flies off the line as a rocket and immediately goes to second place, right behind Vettel. Mark Webber had a terrible start and dropped back quickly. Fernando Alonso got pushed around the outside of the first corner, but when coming back on track he was right behind his teammate, hence up from 8th to 5th.f

By the time the cars got to Les Combes, Rosberg comes alongside Vettel and overtakes the Red Bull through the outside of Les Combes.

One lap later Alonso passes Hamilton at the top of Eau Rouge, and consequently sets fastest lap once free from Hamilton. Michael Schumacher by then has moved up to 14th position, a blistering start up from 24th.

At the end of lap 3 Webber is in the pits already for a change of options to prime tyres. Jenson Button at the same time comes in for new tyres and a change of front wing.

Jaime Alguersuari by that time is out of the race. The Spaniard got pushed by Senna and broke his front left suspension on the rear tyre of Fernando Alonso. On lap 6 Buemi finds himself running with a broken rear wing. Senna came in for a new front wing and got handed a drive trough later on for that incident.

Timo Glock on his behalf also got a drive through penalty for incidents at the start. The rumbling at the back of the grid caused damage to both Team Lotus cars as well.

On lap 6, Vettel pits for a new set of options, hence choosing a different strategy to his teammate Mark Webber.

Meanwhile Fernando Alonso had moved up to second place after getting past his teammate first. On lap 7 he even passed Rosberg and took the lead, only to pits one lap later.

On lap 9, Hamilton now leads, ahead of Rosberg and then Vettel. Kobayashi is 4th, ahead of Petrov, Sutil, Webber and Alonso. Schumacher is 12th, home driver D'Ambrosio 17th.

One lap later Alonso passes Sutil at Webber, and a further lap into the race he gets past Petrov and Kobayashi. This moves Alonso up to third again.

On lap 11 Vettel takes back the lead but at the same time reports that this front tyres are blistering.

2 laps later, Lewis Hamilton passes Kobayashi at the top of the Raidillon and then keeps on going in the middle of the Kemmel straight. By the time the two approach the next right hander, Kobayashi is partly aside of Hamilton's left. With Hamilton seemingly unaware of the Sauber, he slightly goes left to prepare the turn-in, causing him to bump with his left rear into Kobayashi's front right. This sent Hamilton head-on violently into the barriers, thereby also ruining a foam advertisement panel.

The debris on track then needed to be cleaned so the safety car is brought on track.

Vettel and many others decide to use that period to make another pit stop. Alonso doesn't though, so he comes into the lead, ahead of Mark Webber who's not pitting either. Sebastian Vettel is third, ahead of Massa, Rosberg, Sutil, Perez, Petrov and Schumacher.

Vettel quickly gets past Webber thanks to his brand new option tyres. Vettel also appears quite a bit faster than Alonso, likely because of the difference in tyre age. The next lap, with DRS deployed, Vettel got alongside and past into Les Combes.

Schumacher meanwhile is in 7th on lap 21 and is closely followed by Jenson Button, successfully fighting off several overtaking attempts from the McLaren driver.

Halfway through the race, on lap 22, Vettel still leads, 4s ahead of Alonso. Webber is 2 additional seconds down and 4s ahead of Rosberg.

By lap 24 Massa, running in 5th, got company of Jenson Button. The latter got past Schumacher on lap 22 and Sutil one lap later.

By lap 27 Button gets is up in 4th and is on his way to the leaders who are about 8 seconds ahead of them. Vettel and Alonso at this time are struggling with front blistering on their options while Mark Webber is running the same pace on the harder primes.

Positions at the start of lap 28 are Vettel, Alonso (+5.4s), Webber (+3s), Button (+7.7s), Rosberg (+4.7), Massa (+0.8s).

On lap 29 Perez stops his car in the pitlane as he appears to have suffered a broken drive shaft at Les Combes.

At the end of lap 29 Alonso is in the pits. It is his second stop of this afternoon and he takes on the obligatory set of primes. He is back on track with a clean track ahead of him. Vettel follows suit one lap later his stop though being 0.3 seconds quicker than Ferrari's.

Webber pits on lap 31 and takes another set of primes. At the same time Vettel easily passes Button. The latter realized his tyres are just about dead, so he pits at the end of that lap and takes on a new set of soft tyres.

On lap 32 Massa is in the pits again, dropping to 12th after suffering a puncture on the medium tyres he took on during his stop on lap 30.

Alonso's Ferrari now appears to be much less competitive on low fuel and with the medium tyre fitted. On lap 37 Webber takes second place and is massively quicker than Alonso. Button at the time is 5 seconds down on the two.

Meanwhile Michael Schumacher has caught up with Nico Rosberg. Mind you that Rosberg started from 6th, Schumacher from 24th and last.

At the beginning of lap 41, Button has closed the gap to Alonso to just 1.8 seconds.

On lap 42 Button passes Alonso for P3. Seconds later Schumacher takes P5, passing his teammate in similar fashion on the Kemmel straight.

No further differences at the front though as Vettel easily takes the win here, ahead of his teammate and Jenson Button. Alonso again was confronted with the Ferrari's difficulties but still finishes largely ahead of Schumacher and Rosberg.