Lewis Hamilton won what has to be billed as the race of the season, taking the victory in the Belgian GP after an awesome tussle with Kimi Raikkonen and the rain.
Raikkonen took the lead of the grand prix from Hamilton on the second lap after the Brit spun his MP4-23 and maintained a two to five second lead over him all the way to the third last lap.
That was when the rain came down!
The wet track played havoc with the race order, however, it was Hamilton who was best able to control his car, instantly closing up on Raikkonen. The Brit took the lead but cut the chicane, which meant he had to give it back to the reigning Champ. However, one corner later he was back in front.
Raikkonen, though, wasn't going to give up the fight, coming back at Hamilton to take the lead when he went off the track. Moments later, though, Raikkonen himself spun giving Hamilton back the lead while any chance of the Ferrari driver continuing the fight ended seconds later when he put his F2008 into the wall.
Raikkonen's retirement meant that Felipe Massa finished in second place while a quick-thinking BMW team ensured Nick Heidfeld moved from seventh to third in just three laps after opting to put wet tyres on his F1.08.
Race Report
The circuit was drying after morning showers as the teams made the last-minute choice of whether to start on Intermediates or the softer of the dry tyres. The temperatures were down at 16C ambient and 16C on the track. Though rain wasn't predicted for the first 30 minutes of the race, at Spa there is always the chance of a downpour when you least expect it.
The start of the lap, at La Source, was wet and the end of the lap at the Bus Stop was wet, but in between was dry.
As the tyre warmers came off, all the teams had gone for soft dry weather tyres with the exception of Nelson Piquet Junior.
When the red lights went out Lewis Hamilton got a good start, more than out-dragging P2 Felipe Massa into the often hazardous La Source hairpin. It was a dismal start for P3 Heikki Kovalainen, though, the Finn failing to get away with any speed and getting swallowed up by the pack. At one stage on Lap 1 he'd fallen back to P13.
Jarno Trulli had the most brilliant of starts scooting up the inside into Turn 1, making up four or five places, before getting slammed in the back by Sebsatien Bourdais under braking and pushed wide. Jarno continued but lost places after a spin at the Bus Stop.
The beneficiary of this carnage was that Bourdais moved up to P4, but he would be passed by Fernando Alonso before the end of the lap to drop down to P5. Team-mate Sebastian Vettel, who often excels in the wet had a poor start and fell back.
As they crossed the line at the end of the opening lap the positions were: 1.Hamilton, 2.Raikkonen, 3.Massa, 4.Alonso, 5.Bourdais, 6.Piquet, 7.Webber, 8.Kubica, 9.Glock. 10. Heidfeld 11.Kovalainen, 12.Vettel
Nelson Piquet Junior made the most of his intermediate tyres to make up places, but he would start going backwards from that point on. His team-mate Fernando Alonso set the fastest lap on Lap 2, but it was the battle between Hamilton, Massa and Raikkonen that held everyone's attention in the opening two laps.
Raikkonen had made a majestic pass on Massa through Eau Rouge on the opening lap and edged across his team-mate on the straight up to Les Combes to take P2 off Felipe (doubly impressive when you take into account that Massa had less wing on than Raikkonen and was able to go consistently quicker than Raikkonen in Sector 1 for the rest of the race.) Then he set about closing down Hamilton.
The job was made easier for him by Hamilton at the beginning of Lap 2. The World Champion, who had reported a consistent problem locking his tyres in La Source during practice and also on his pole lap, spun briefly at the hairpin allowing Raikkonen to close right up and overtake him on the outside as the cars headed for Les Combes.
Kimi then set about edging out a lead - he set Fastest Laps on Laps 3 and 4, while Hamilton responded with fastest on Laps 5 and 6. It was immediately clear that these two were faster than Felipe Massa who began to drop back, if only by a few tenths a lap.
Heikki Kovalainen began to make places up through the field. On Lap 4 he'd got back to P8 demoting Nelson Piquet to P9. By Lap 9 he'd managed to get past Robert Kubica and into P7.
Raikkonen's speed in Sector 2 was the most impressive part of his lap. As he notched up the Fastest Lap again on Lap 7 (1:49.710) he was over a second quicker than Massa in S2. Lewis was hanging on, though, and when Kimi lowered the Fastest Lap to 1:49.108 on Lap 8, Lewis replied with a 1:49.118.
Kovalainen's afternoon took a turn for the worse when he tried to take P6 off Mark Webber on Lap 10. Closing quickly on the Red Bull he made an ineffectual lunge at the Red Bull going into the Bus Stop chicane. It was a half-hearted move where Kovalainen hit Webber's right rear with his front left and spun the Red Bull around.
It was clumsey and was soon under investigation from the race stewards, who announced a drive-though penalty a lap later. There have been many similar incidents in F1 this season that haven't attracted any kind of penalty and would prompt post-race speculation because yet again it was a McLaren that received the penalty.
Hamilton pitted at the end of Lap 11 and came back into traffic, Raikkonen pitted at the end of Lap 12 and increased his advantage, while Felipe Massa pitted at the end of Lap 13 and closed up the gap to Hamilton. Lewis had been 5.5 seconds ahead of Felipe going into the stops but afterwards was only 3.0 seconds in front. All three cars chose another set of soft tyres.
On Lap 15 Nelson Piquet Junior became the first casualty of the race by losing control of his car at the Fagne chicane and throwing the car into the barriers.
Kimi Raikkonen, already with a 5.7 lead to Hamilton wasn't going to settle for that. He started to reduce the Fastest Lap, moving it down to 1:48.229 on Lap 17 and 1:47.932 on Lap 19. The front three were very evenly matched in terms of lap time, though achieving it by very different methods. Massa was far quicker in Sectors 1 and 3 and lost a lot of time in Sector 2. Raikkonen and Hamilton were better matched through the lap with Raikkonen having the edge in S2 and S3.
Behind them Fernando Alonso was running in a lonely P4 - over twenty seconds back by Lap 20. Robert Kubica had closed up to Sebastien Bourdais to threaten his P5.
Towards the latter half of the second stint, though, Massa's times began to fall off and on Lap 22 he was a whole second slower than Raikkonen in S2 alone. Back in P9 and P10, neither Timo Glock nor Nico Rosberg had made their first stops, yet the leading Ferrari and the second placed McLaren were approaching their second.
Both pitted on Lap 25, when Raikkonen had a 5.8 gap to Hamilton and Hamilton had establed a 6.1 second advantage over Massa. Now with the hard tyres the McLaren likes best, Lewis was able to start reeling Raikkonen in. By Lap 28 he'd reduced the defecit to 2.4 seconds and on Lap 29 (of 44) it was just 1.9 seconds.
On Lap 30 the race order was: 1.Raikkonen, 2.Hamilton, 3.Massa, 4.Bourdais (still to stop again), 5.Kubica (still to stop again), 6.Vettel (still to stop again), 7.Heidfeld (still to stop again), 8.Alonso, 9.Webber (still to stop again), 10.Kovalainen.
Though Hamilton was close to Raikkonen on the track, he couldn't close the gap to anything less than 1.7 seconds and Massa wasn't giving up by any means. On the hard tyres, he too was making great progress and with nine laps to go was just 3.1 behind the Brit.
The pit-stops had played out by now and Alonso moved up to P4, followed by Bourdais alone in P5. Robert Kubica had been delayed during his stop and fallen back to P8, behind Vettel P6 and Heidfeld P7.
On Lap 37 Fernando Alonso reported on race radio that rain was falling on the circuit. It had been predicted by race control on Lap 26 to fall in 20 minutes time, but only now the first stops began to affect the cars.
The beneficiary was Lewis Hamilton who started to close on Raikkonen and by Lap 40 was just 0.9 back and looking threatening. He made a mistake going into the bus-stop on Lap 41 and let the gap open out to 2.0 again, but was soon right up with the Finn. Massa, though not falling back by much, held a watching brief.
On Lap 42 the cars began to get very twitchy as the lap times started to fall. Hamilton, now, was considerably quicker than Raikkonen's Ferrari and swept past him on the outside going into the Bus Stop chicane. Though the Mclaren was actually in front Raikkonen left no room for Hamilton to turn in without crashing into him and forced Lewis into the run-off tarmac, skipping the chicane.
Hamilton realising he'd cut the chicane was radioed by his McLaren team to give back the place and duly let Raikkonen by before the Start/Finish line. He followed him down to La Source and jinked inside him going into the hairpin. Raikkonen tried to cut back underneath and nerfed the Mclaren's rear tyre. The same move in Turkey had punctured Kovalainen's tyre but it held.
Up and down the field the order was beginning to change as more rain fell.
Raikkonen was not finished yet. He pursued Hamilton all the way up to Les Combes and almost missed his braking point. Going down the hill into Pouhon he shot off wide and onto the run-off tarmac, but he still had Lewis in his sights. Then a stroke of luck for Kimi. Nico Rosberg's Williams had gone off in front of them both and was about to rejoin the track just as Lewis turned the corner.
Alerted by the waved yellows of the flag marshal Hamilton slowed and had to run off track, while Kimi maintained more speed and managed to steer round the outside of the slow Williams and keep on the circuit. Though Raikkonen overtook under waved yellows he wasn't about to give up the place now that he was ahead and Hamilton had to follow on behind him. As this was happening Nick Heidfeld made the very wise choice of stopping for some last minute intermediate tyres from 7th place.
Raikkonen led Hamilton for about 300 metres before snapping into a spin and narrowly missing the barriers, surrendering the lead yet again.As he rejoined, Felipe Massa hove into view round the turn and was able to see his team-mate skeeter round Blanchimont and then lose control on the exit, spinning round this time and taking off the nose of his car.
Raikkonen was out on the spot and Massa set off after Hamilton. Alonso who had inherited P3 decided to go for some last-minute intermediates.
The final lap was one of tip-toeing around a drenched track and trying to keep on the black stuff. Hamilton managed to keep his emotions under control and by the line was 14 seconds ahead of Massa. Heifeld steamed round his final lap picking up three places in the space of two corners and finished on the podium. Alonso also managed to take 4th place in the dying moments of the race.
Though the stewards decided to investigate the Hamilton versus Raikkonen incident at the chicane - it's unsure why they wouldn't investigate the incident with Rosberg.
A fabulous win for Hamilton and one he thoroughly deserved. Any other result wil leave the sport in serious need of some credibility.
Results
01 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:22:44.933
02 F. Massa Ferrari + 14.400
03 N. Heidfeld BMW + 23.800
04 F. Alonso Renault + 28.900
05 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso + 29.000
06 R. Kubica BMW + 29.4000
07 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso + 31.100
08 T. Glock Toyota + 56.500
09 M. Webber Red Bull + 57.200
10 H. Kovalainen McLaren + 1 laps
11 D. Coulthard Red Bull + 1 laps
12 N. Rosberg Williams + 1 laps
13 A. Sutil Force India F1 + 1 laps
14 K. Nakajima Williams + 1 laps
15 J. Button Honda + 1 laps
16 J. Trulli Toyota + 1 laps
17 G. Fisichella Force India F1 + 1 laps
Did not finish
18 K. Räikkönen Ferrari + 3 laps
19 R. Barrichello Honda + 24 laps
20 N. Piquet jr. Renault + 31 laps
