Belgian Grand Prix 2012 - Report

Jenson Button put in a dominant display at the Belgian Grand Prix, taking a lights-to-flag victory in impressive style. Following an emphatic pole position on Saturday, Button drove every lap around the Spa-Francorchamps circuit to perfection, Sebastian Vettel salvaging a second place finish from a lowly starting position. Kimi Raikkonen had a solid run to third as two of the other title protagonists – Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton – were eliminated in a terrifying pile-up at the very first corner of the race.

Button was quite simply the class of the field on Saturday during qualifying, taking his first pole position in over three years and his first for McLaren by a margin of three tenths. Lining up alongside would be Kamui Kobayashi; the Sauber’s prodigious pace was underlined by Sergio Perez qualifying fifth fastest. The Mexican would in fact start from fourth place behind Raikkonen’s Lotus as Pastor Maldonado, who set the third fastest time for Williams, was demoted to sixth behind Alonso’s Ferrari for blocking during qualifying.

As the lights went out, Button made a clean start to lead the pack towards La Source; little was the Brit aware that all hell was about to break loose behind. As Maldonado jumped the start, Romain Grosjean made a good getaway from eighth on the grid and moved across on Hamilton, who was disgruntled with his grid position of seventh using a different rear wing to teammate Button. Hamilton stood his ground and the two collided, leading to Grosjean’s Lotus being violently launched into the air and into the cars of Perez and Alonso. All four drivers were clearly out of the race but fortunately unhurt, with the voluminous amount of debris spewed over the circuit necessitating an appearance from the Safety Car. Also caught out in the mêlée, albeit not eliminated, were Maldonado and, sadly for Sauber, Kobayashi.

All of the chaos meant that Button was now leading from Raikkonen, the two Force Indias of Nico Hulkenberg (from P11 on the grid) and Paul Di Resta (from P9), Michael Schumacher (from P13), and the two Toro Rossos of Daniel Ricciardo (from P16) and Jean-Eric Vergne (from P15). Mark Webber, who qualified seventh but started from twelfth courtesy of a gearbox change penalty, was now in eighth, with the sister Red Bull of Vettel in twelfth having been forced to take major avoiding action at La Source.

With all the wreckage cleared, the race got underway in earnest on lap 5. Button wasted no time in stretching his advantage from Hulkenberg, who was quick to pounce on Raikkonen and seize second place with the Lotus struggling initially on the softer medium tyres. The following lap, Schumacher dispatched Di Resta to claim fourth, which became third as he passed the ailing Raikkonen at Les Combes on lap 11. The Finn would take the opportunity to pit at the end of the lap to switch to the hard tyres, with Webber doing likewise as he struggled for pace and began to lose positions.

As Button continued to stretch his lead, Hulkenberg pitted for mediums on lap 13 having begun the race on softs, but was to resume behind Raikkonen whose Lotus was far more at home on the hard tyres. In the meantime, Vettel was beginning to make progress, benefitting from a series of overtakes and a flurry of early stops to lie a close third behind Schumacher by lap 19. Third became second as the Mercedes driver stopped that lap, cutting across the bows of his countryman as he dived for the pit lane.

Button made his stop for hard tyres on lap 20, with his lead in tact as he re-joined the circuit; Raikkonen had moved up into second place from Hulkenberg, Webber, Massa, who stopped on lap 12, and Vettel, who was the last to stop on lap 21. It was clear at this stage that Button and Vettel had stopped sufficiently late to attempt a one-stop strategy, whilst Raikkonen, Hulkenberg, Webber and Massa would all have to stop again. The latter three all came in together on lap 27, with Webber finding himself under investigation for a potentially unsafe release, whilst Raikkonen pitted on lap 28.

That left Button and Vettel comfortably occupying the top two positions, with Schumacher back up to third ahead of Raikkonen. A great battle ensued between the two former Ferrari champions, as Raikkonen passed Schumacher at the Bus Stop chicane on lap 31 before the latter retorted by getting back past the Lotus at Les Combes several corners later. The tussle was finally settled in Raikkonen’s favour on lap 34 at the exit of La Source, with Schumacher once more beginning to struggle with tyre wear before he abandoned his one-stop strategy and headed back to the pits on lap 35.

Button continued to run untroubled at the head of the field, and would ultimately cruise to his fourteenth career victory and his first since the season-opener at Melbourne almost six months ago. Vettel claimed second, trimming Alonso’s points lead from 40 to 24 in the process, with Raikkonen keeping himself in contention for title honours with third. Hulkenberg successfully repelled the late advances of Webber to take a career-best fourth place, with the Aussie falling victim to Massa during the closing stages at Les Combes. The Brazilian thus took fifth place, with Webber having to make do with sixth. Schumacher emerged from his second stop seventh and would finish there on his 300^th Grand Prix weekend.

Next up were the Toro Rosso pair of Vergne and Ricciardo, who, at least initially, was absolutely flying on the medium tyres and was comfortably running inside the top six until around half-distance. His pace nonetheless faded once he switched to hard tyres however, and Vergne ultimately got the better of him in order to take eighth place. With Ricciardo ninth, the Faenza-based squad secured their first haul of points since Malaysia, with di Resta unable to maintain his lofty position from early in the race as a result of his Force India's KERS unit failing – the dejected Scot was left with a single point for tenth for his valiant efforts.

Nico Rosberg endured a nightmare weekend. His Mercedes conked out early in Saturday practice – the only dry running of the weekend prior to qualifying – and the German as a result qualified well down in eighteenth place before being dropped to P23 for a change of gearbox. Like Schumacher, he tried to make a one-stop strategy work, albeit starting the race on the hard tyre, but was little more than a mobile chicane for much of the race and was eventually forced to pit again en route to eleventh.

Things weren't much better for Bruno Senna, who, after a dismal qualifying session that saw the Williams line up in P17, had managed to claw his way up to eighth with a one-stop strategy towards the end of the race before he began to give away chunks of time with severely worn rubber - he was swallowed up by both Toro Rossos, Di Resta and Rosberg before limping across the line in twelfth. Kobayashi eventually came home in thirteenth place in spite of having a gaping hole in his sidepod as a result of the first corner antics, his Sauber team left to ponder what might have been following a sparkling Saturday performance.

Vitaly Petrov crossed the line in fourteenth ahead of Timo Glock, who bested teammate Charles Pic in an exciting if ultimately insignificant on-track scrap for position. Heikki Kovalainen came home seventeenth despite running as high as tenth behind the Safety Car before costing himself time with two spins and a pit-lane altercation with Narain Karthikeyan. The Indian driver’s race would end in the barriers at Stavelot, ostensibly due to a loose wheel, whilst the second HRT of Pedro de la Rosa was the final finisher in eighteenth. After being caught out in the first-corner carnage, Maldonado’s race would end shortly after at Les Combes following contact with Glock at the restart, which Marussia claim cost them any chance of taking the fight to their Caterham rivals.

Despite putting in perhaps the most convincing performance of the year so far, Button still languishes a hefty 63 points behind Alonso in the championship. He is however now only 16 in arrears of Hamilton, which could give McLaren a headache as the season reaches its climax. The Woking oufit may have the quickest car at the moment, but one of their drivers is going to have seize the initiative as the European season draws to a close next weekend at Monza to be able to truly challenge Alonso. With the race pace of the Red Bull and Lotus perhaps looking somewhat suspect notwithstanding podium finishes for Vettel and Raikkonen, Alonso still holds all the aces as his Ferrari team look to thrill the home fans next time out at another classic circuit.