The F1 Belgian Grand Prix ended with a win for Mercedes , Nico Rosberg, who started from pole, carried on until the last lap, managing the advantage he had on his direct chaser, on the second march of the podium, Red Bull driver Daniel Ricciardo and to the big surprise of everyone Louis Hamilton closed the last march. It was a pretty thrilling race, with a Ferrari crash at the start with Verstappen, a virtual Safety car, a huge crash by Kevin Magnussen, a safety car and red flag.
The Race first stage : Penalties served, Hamilton sat on the last line with Fernando Alonso, before them was Gutierrez for Haas F1 who was serving a 10-places grid penalty and Marcus Ericsson who preferred to start from the pits. Pole was for Roseberg, next to him Verstappen and in the second line, the two Ferrari Horses ready to prance at any moment. Red lights gone off, Ferrari did an amazing start, until getting to the La Source virage, this is where all went funny : Vettel closed on Raikkonen who was pushing with Verstappen. It resulted in Vettel losing control over his car, waited for the field to clear to go again racing, Raikkonen sustained a puncture and front wing damage and Verstappen lost a chunk from his front wing. At the first lap, right after the Les Combes straight, Manor driver, Pascal Werlhein cleaned Jenson Button off the track, and carried him from behind, the two drivers quit. Carlos Sainz suffered a car puncture and tire explosion which ended his race. It all turned to the favor of Williams, Force India’s Hulkenberg, and Hamilton who grabbed a few places. At the end of the first lap, Roseberg was in the lead, then Hulkenberg and Ricciardo. Hamilton was 15th. The race carried on being eventful, until the 9th lap, where Magnussen lost control over his car in Radillion Eau Rouge, went in all directions and hit the tire wall. The crash was due to loss of control over the back of the car. Charlie, the race director ordered a safety car right away, but it lead to a 17 minutes red flag, until the tire wall was fixed. teams took their chance for change of race strategy, fixing damage on the cars.
Race Restart : The race restart was behind the safety car, who existed at the 11th lap. The drivers made use of fresher tires, and especially the long straights for impressive overtakes. Raikkonen and Verstappen touched once again, the Dutchman could have taken Ice Man into pieces while defending his place. Having an aggressive defense strategy and waiting for his opponent to go in a direction or another so that he makes his mind. Alonso, 3rd after the restart, had to undergo overtakes one after the other, to finish the race in the 7th place, 1 minute behind the lead. Hamilton, carried his way, but did not achieve more than the third place, the gap in the championship was reduced by 10 points, and Roseberg is second just by 9 points. Force India did a nice race in general, finishing 4th and 5th, advantage to Hulkenberg over Perez, they scored precious points and getting to the 4th place in the constructors championship.
Hamilton did the fastest lap of the race, cars being full on fuel, and tires being more used, he did a 1:51.583. Despite having a one stop strategy, Verstappen finished off the points, the last point was grabbed by Felipe Massa for Williams.
At the end of the race this is the final standing :
1. Nico Rosberg, Mercedes, 1:44:51
2. Daniel Ricciardo, Red Bull, + 14.113
3. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes, + 27.634
4. Nico Hulkenberg, Force India, + 35.907
5. Sergio Perez, Force India, + 40.660
6. Sebastian Vettel, Ferrari, + 45.394
7. Fernando Alonso, McLaren, + 59.445
8. Valtteri Bottas, Williams, + 60.151
9. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, + 61.109
10. Felipe Massa, Williams, + 65.873
11. Max Verstappen, Red Bull, +71.138
12. Esteban Gutierrez, Haas, +73.877
13. Romain Grosjean, Haas, +76.474
14. Daniil Kvyat, Toro Rosso, +87.097
15. Jolyon Palmer, Renault, +93.165
16. Esteban Ocon, Manor, + 1 lap
17. Felipe Nasr, Sauber, + 1 lap
As for the championship standing after the race (just the first 10 places) :