McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton won the Belgian Grand Prix and proved once again that just having a pole position may not guarantee a win. Pole position winner Mark Webber succumbed to a bad start, and passed on the opportunity to Hamilton, who led the race throughout and beat him by 1.5s. With this win, Hamilton has moved back into the lead of the world championship with 182 points to Webber’s 179. Vettel remains third on 151 ahead of Button who’s on 147 and Alonso with 141 points.

“It was a great weekend,” Hamilton beamed, “A very tough race. I went wide and off at Turn 8 but got away with it and stayed ahead. The team did a remarkable job this weekend. We’re not competitive with Red Bull everywhere but what’s great is that when we are close, we’ll maximise it.”

After the loss at the 2008 Belgian GP, which was caused by a penalty, Hamilton desperately wanted to add Spa to the list of places he has conquered. Webber started badly on the formation lap due to a clutch problem.

Later Webber explained: “The car bogged down badly on the formation lap. I made a small adjustment to the clutch but then I had the problem even worse at the start proper. I was surprised and I was on the back foot through Eau Rouge. I lost a place to Adrian Sutil but got it back and then passed Felipe again, so it wasn’t too disastrous.”

Jenson Button was driving wonderfully and it looked like a McLaren one-two was on the cards. But after the traffic-caused damage to his left front wing endplate, Vettel moved in close, and Kubica, Webber and Massa also raced ahead. Button had things well under control till the rain started, and on lap 16th Vettel got too close to Button, who lost control under braking for the chicane, and then speared into the side of the McLaren. He finally had to retire after the 15th lap, but not before he touched Tonio Liuzzi’s front wing after passing him in the chicane.

Even after the rain had stopped, Kubica stuck to his second place ahead of Webber during the first tyre stops. When the rain attacked again during the final quarter, Kubica had to shift his attention to adjusting his steering wheel buttons ready for his wet tyres and he overshot his stopping place in the pits and lightly damaged the right front wing endplate. Webber grabbed the opportunity and finished second place. A third place finish for Kubica can hardly be considered as a bad one, though.

Massa managed a smart fourth finish and added some important points to the Ferrari team, while teammate, Fernando Alonso had to retire due to an accident.

Force India driver Adrian Sutil put on a great show to get a fifth place and protect the team’s points advantage. Team Mercedes had a tough weekend but managed to end the race with Nico Rosberg at number six and Michael Schumacher at number seven.

Kamui Kobayashi was in his elements and drove to the eighth for the BMW Sauber team, ahead of Vitalt Petrov, who finished at the ninth position. The last one to end the points at the Belgian GP was Toro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari, who was holding Force India’s Liuzzi behind. Later Alguersuari was penalised for cutting the final chicane on lap 42, and 18 seconds were added to his race time. This proved beneficial to Liuzzi who moved to 10 from his 11th position finish.

Behind Liuzzi, BMW Sauber’s Pedro de la Rosa survived a late off at Rivage to take 12th ahead of Sebastien Buemi’s Toro Rosso and Nico Hulkenberg’s Williams. Heikki Kovalainen finished at 16th place in his Lotus, ahead of Lucas di Grassi and Timo Glock, with late-spinning Jarno Trulli 18th from final finisher Sakon Yamamoto. Bruno Senna failed to finish as something broke on his race car.

Race Standings – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) 1:29:04.268, Mark Webber (Red Bull)- +1.5 sec, Robert Kubica (Renault)- +3.4 sec, Felipe Massa (Ferrari) – +8.2 sec, Adrian Sutil (Force India)- +9.0 sec, Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)- +12.3 sec, Michael Schumacher (Mercedes)- +15.5 sec, Kamui Kobayashi (BMW Sauber)- +16.6 sec, Vitaly Petrov (Renault)- +23.8 sec, Vitantonio Liuzzi (Force India) – +34.8 sec

Driver Standings: Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)- 182 Mark Webber (Red Bull)- 179, Sebastian Vettel (Redbull)- 151, Jenson Button(McLaren)- 147, Fernando Alonso (Ferrari)- 141, Felipe Massa (Ferrari) – 109, Robert Kubica (Renault)- 104, Nico Rosberg (Mercedes)- 102, Adrian Sutil (Force India)-45, Michael Schumacher (Mercedes)- 44