Button wins spectacular Belgian GP

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

Even though this year's Belgian GP kicked off with a major crash at the start of the race, Jenson Button kept out of the danger zone and won the race without ever coming under threat. Sebastian Vettel recovered well to second place while Kimi Raikkonen finished in third place.

The weather was great again at Spa, just like on Saturday, with few clouds and slight wind.

Only Hulkenberg in 11th and Rosberg in 23rd place start on the harder tyres, everybody else is on options.

As the cars came to a halt on the starting grid, Kobayashi's front brakes immediately started to smoke. He warmed them up nicely, but the standstill may now cause some burning of the carbon components around the brakes themselves.

As the lights went out, Maldonado launched off incredibly quick and dove to the inside of the circuit. It looks as though he jumped the start though as he moved up from 6th to 2nd place before the La Source corner.

What happened next though would result in an immense amount of debris on track. Grosjean made a great start but then moved to the very right of the track, cutting ahead of Hamilton. This bumped Hamilton's front left into the Lotus' right rear wheel, causing Hamilton's car to lift up and get onto the rear of Grosjean's Lotus. This also meant the two lost control of their cars and launched onto Alonso's Ferrari.

The Spaniard was extremely lucky as Grosjean's car flew over the front of his car while Hamilton's McLaren hit his rear wing. Of course, this also involved other cars, as Pérez also abandoned the race in that event.

Alonso stayed in his car for a few moments and the doctor was immediately on the scene. 30 seconds later however the Spaniard left his car on his own but seemed dizzy as he was supported by the FIA doctor. Lewis Hamilton meanwhile walked into Grosjean, clearly unhappy with the Frenchman's behaviour at the start.

The event immediately triggered the safety car that would remain on track during the first 4 laps. Several cars meanwhile came into the pitlane to repair damage, including Kobayashi, De La Rosa and Maldonado.

Positions behind the SC are then Button, Raikkonen, Hulkenberg, Di Resta, Schumacher, Ricciardo, Vergne, Senna.

By lap 8, Button is 4.6 seconds ahead of Hulkenberg. The German passed Raikkonen on the first lap. By that time, Maldonado was out of the race with another broken front wing. He had just been fitted with a new one, but apparently he got involved in yet another incident at the restart.

Schumacher on the other hand also moved up to 4th after passing Di Resta.

On lap 10, Vettel passed his teammate at Busstop in an impressive move. The World Champion took the outside of the entry of the corner, hence having the inside line of the lefthand turn following it.

Half a lap later Ricciardo passes Di Resta, the latter deciding at the end of that lap to stop and change his medium tyres to the harder compound.

In lap 11 Schumacher then passes Raikkonen through the outside of Les Combes. At the end of that lap, both Raikkonen and Webber make their first stops.

This means positions at the start of lap 13 are BUT, HUL, SCH, VER, RIC, SEN, VET, ROS, MAS, RAI, DIR, WEB, PET, KOV. Petrov and Ricciardo however dove into the pitlane at that moment.

At the end of lap 13, Vettel then finally gets past Senna in the same manner as he passed Mark Webber.

That same lap marks the fastest lap for Raikkonen. The Finn appears to be much more at ease on the harder tyres and he's now trailing Rosberg, trying to find a gap to get past the German. Behind him meanwhile is Di Resta who also looks eager to make a pass stick. Half a lap later though Raikkonen already makes a solid pass at Les Combes and now looks ahead to a 5 second gap towards Vergne.

Drama in the pitlane meanwhile as Kovalainen is unsafely released from his pitstop. Kovalainen got away from his pit area just at the time when an HRT dove into the box, hitting each other as a result. Both were able to continue, but a drive through penalty will follow for the Caterham driver, albeit it was a mistake from his team.

Webber is making great progress at that time, as he passes Ricciardo and then also Rosberg in the same lap. One lap later Massa is also past Rosberg with the latter still having to stop and change his hard tyres for fresher Pirellis.

In lap 19, Vettel got close up to Schumacher and attempted a pass on the German into Busstop. Schumacher though locked up his front wheels badly and waved to the right, forcing Vettel to the left. It kept the advantage to Schumacher, but with Vettel slightly aside, big was his surprise when Schumacher decided to simply go straight on into the pitlane, cutting off Vettel's line into the corner. Schumacher may have approached this a little bit wiser by making sure he was on the inside of the chicane.

Schumache rejoined the circuit in 8th, but it is soon after announced that the incident with Vettel will be investigated after the race.

Button meanwhile pitted as well and is still in the lead. Vettel then pitted one lap later and rejoined the track just ahead of Ricciardo and Schumacher.

At the end of lap 23 and past the halfway mark of the race, Button is still leading, ahead of Raikkonen, Hulkenberg, Webber, Vettel, Massa, Ricciardo, Schumacher, Vergne, Senna.

On lap 28 Hulkenberg, Webber and Massa simultaneously make their pitstop. Hulkenberg rejoins ahead of Ricciardo while Webber is behind him. Massa is a little further back and right behind Senna. These stops also mean that Vettel now has a clean strip a track ahead of him as he's now 3rd and 6 seconds down on Raikkonen.

One lap later Raikkonen is also in the pits to make his final pitstop. There's 15 laps to go. Massa also got past Senna thanks to DRS ahead of Les Combes.

After passing Ricciardo, an interesting battle unfolds as Schumacher, Raikkonen, Hulkenberg and Webber are all within 2 seconds, 3rd to 6th. Raikkonen looks especially threatening to Schumacher while Webber looks set to make an attempt on Hulkenberg.

Half a lap later Raikkonen passes Schumacher in La Source, but the German manages to easily retake the position at the end of the straight after Eau Rouge. The Finn has a considerable top speed problem as he is even unable to get past Schumacher while in the slipstream with DRS open. He's hitting the rev limiter while his set-up is more aimed at downforce through S2.

Karthikeyan meanwhile is out of the race as he crashed out in Turn 7.

Another two laps later Raikkonen makes another attempt and takes the inside line of Schumacher as they head into Eau Rouge. The Finn took the kerbs on the inside of the turn and made an impressively courageous move and stuck. The next lap clearly showed the performance difference as Raikkonen easily pulled away a few seconds.

One lap later Hulkenberg passes Schumacher at La Source and similarly gets repassed by the German in the DRS zone. Another lap later Schumacher pits as the team switched his one-stop strategy to a two-stopper. The tyres were degrading too quickly, and with 10 laps to go he would only continue to lose positions.

On lap 36 Massa reaped the benefits of Schumacher holding up the cars behind him as the Brazilian passed Webber, previously stuck behind Schumacher - Hulkenberg.

Senna meanwhile stuck to a one-stop strategy is struggling badly towards the end of the race. He was 8th but gets past by Vergne in lap 39 and then by Ricciardo half a lap later. In fact the performance has so dramatically fallen that Williams is calling Senna in to make another additional pitstop. They didn't lose much of course, as the car was out of the points already.