Belgian Grand Prix (2013) RESULT

With Hamilton on pole for the 2013 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francochamps, can Mercedes make it two in a  row or will the Red Bulls take control?

After the last outing for F1 in Hungary three weeks ago, Lewis Hamilton goes in to the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps with a win under his belt and pole position too, so he should have had a great chance of another win. But it didn’t work out like that.

In fact, the 2013 Belgian Grand Prix turned in to a demonstration of the powers of Sebastian Vettel and his Red Bull, as the German wasted no time taking Hamilton in the very early stages before going on to control the race from the front, and take a resounding victory with his fifth win of the season.

Behind Vettel’s dominance the pack got shaken up from the start with Alonso – who started ninth – putting in a stunning first lap which saw him move up in to fifth before despatching Button and Rosberg by lap six and passing Hamilton for second place on lap 14 after Hamilton ran wide going in to La Source.

After that, Alonso pulled away from Hamilton in pursuit of Vettel, but never made any real impact, with Hamilton left in his wake to fend off Rosberg and Webber as the race came to a close.

Behind the front five, Button managed to finish in his McLaren in sixth place – despite a late change from a one to two stop strategy – which was at least a credible result for McLaren, with Romain Grosjean in the Lotus managing to hold on to seventh place just ahead of Ferrari’s Felipe Massa.

The last of the top ten was made up of Adrian Sutil’s Force India’s and Daniel Ricciardo’s Toro Rosso – who managed his tenth place in the closing laps by passing Sergio Perez in the McLaren despite a drive through penalty for forcing Grosjean off the track.

The tales of woe for the day belonged to Paul di Resta – the man who almost had pole here yesterday – who was put out of the race in the middle of a chaotic incident between Pastor Maldonado in the Williams, who did the taking out of di Resta, Sauber’s Guitierrez and Adrian Sutil. A bad ending for di Resta in a race that had promised him much.

The other tale of woe belonged to Kimmi Raikkonen who had to retire after his brakes failed, which has left him with little chance of contending for the title, as he’s now in fourth place behind Lewis Hamilton.

Despite suspicions that Mercedes were finally getting the pieces of their puzzle in place in Hungary and looking serious contenders in Belgium and for the title, today’s race underlined what we’d all suspected – Red Bull are still close to invincible over the course of a season.