Patronise F1

The Belgian Grand Prix was possibly best described as "intriguing" for much of the race distance, but a few laps from the end, and with championship leader Lewis Hamilton seeming to have no answer to the pace of the long-time race leader Kimi Raikkonen, the rain came to pepper the circuit, and as ever when moisture and F1 meet, the whole thing became madder than a bag of tits. For almost a whole lap, Raikkonen and Hamilton passed, re-passed, banged wheels, spun and recovered all over the shop, until Kimi had one spin too many and crunched his Ferrari into the wall, leaving Hamilton to romp to victory.

Or did he? Well, as it turns out, no he didn't. Hours after the race had been concluded and the champagne had been sprayed, the race stewards passed their draconian hand across proceedings, and deemed that Hamilton had gained an unfair advantage during their initial squabbling, dropping a 25 second time penalty onto Hamilton, which dropped him to third place and meant the actual winner was Hamilton's main title rival Felipe Massa.

As far as the actual race was concerned, zero points was a desperately poor return for Raikkonen, and a horrible bit of fortune. He had come into the weekend under all manner of pressure from the media, and his own team, to put in some sort of decent performance, and he had responded pretty damn brilliantly, scything past an almost-stationary Kovalainen off the grid, then passing Massa on the run down to Les Combes, before inheriting the lead into the same corner next time by when Hamilton was delayed after rotating on a wet patch at La Source. Sticky.

Further back, the slippery conditions caused chaos at the start, with Jarno Trulli steaming up the inside of a number of slower starting cars, and getting rammed by Sebastien Bourdais in the Toro Rosso to boot. As Heidfeld and Kovalainen lost a sackful of places, Bourdais jumped up to 5th behind Hamilton, Kimi, Massa and Alonso, with Trulli, Piquet, Webber and Glock behind him. But Trulli was an early casualty. He spun on lap 3 and spent the rest of the race dawdling around at the back, his car apparently damaged from his hit from Bourdais.

As Kimi eased away at the front, the action further back focused on Kovalainen's recovery drive after hs muffed start dropped him to 11th. Sadly, after passing a number of cars fairly neatly, including the intermediate-shod Piquet Jr and Robert Kubica's BMW, he drove into Mark Webber's Red Bull at the Bus Stop chicane in a half-hearted and clumsy move. Though both cars continued, Kovalainen was delayed with a drive through penalty for his stupidity.

The battle for the lead seemed to head decisively towards Raikkonen in the middle stints, while he raced away in front, Hamilton found himself stuck in traffic (largely his own team mate, to compound the problem), and the lead grew to nearly six seconds. For the lengthy final stints however, both Raikkonen and Hamilton were forced to switch to the harder compound tyre, which seemed to play into Hamilton's hands, as he reined in Raikkonen's lead, although even once he caught him up, actually passing the determined Finn seemed impossible.

But then the rain came to cause it's unique brand of chaos. With three laps to go, Hamilton picked up a tow running through Blanchimont, and attacked the Ferrari around the outside of the Bus Stop. He was elbowed off the track by Raikkonen, cutting the chicane as he did so, only to let Raikkonen past for the briefest of moments before nailing a move into La Source. Contention reigned as to whether or not Hamilton really "gave the place back" to Raikkonen properly, and the stewards had themselves an investigation to investigate.

But the drama was nowhere near over. Halfway around the penultimate tour, Hamilton lost control on the treacherous track at Fagnes and nearly collected a recovering Nico Rosberg. Kimi dived between the pair of them to inherit the lead, but then spun at the next corner to allow Hamilton back in front. The Finn then slithered around a tarmac run off as he tried to catch the Brit, but his desperation caught him out at Blanchimont, as he spun again, this time nerfing the barrier to end his race, and possibly his world championship.

Hamilton was now clear in the lead, but was far from home and dry. He had a couple of almighty moments on the dry tyres at a slick Eau Rouge, and on the Kemmel Straight, but he completed one of the slowest winning tours in the history of the sport to take the checkered flag from a quiet, but surprisingly good, Felipe Massa, who managed to complete the last few wet laps without crashing or spinning, a miracle in itself.

Behind the leaders, there was chaos in the rest of the points places. Alonso, Heidfeld, Vettel and Kubica all pitted to switch to intermediates, and duly lapped a minute faster than everyone else. By the end, Sebastien Bourdais (on dries) was swamped and dropped from third to seventh, as Heidfeld grabbed a lucky podium from Alonso, Vettel and Kubica. Timo Glock seemed to complete the point scoring places after Kovalainen's latest recovery drive ended with a mechanical problem on the final lap, but the German was penalised for passing Webber under yellow flags on the last lap, and was given a 25 second penalty.

Further down, Webber (who had also switched to inters) ended just out of the points, but picked up a single point after Glock's penalty, while his team mate Coulthard ended 11th. Rosberg netted a poor 12th, ahead of Adrian Sutil (again brilliant in the wet, though not quite enough for a silly bet on Sutil to finish in the points to be worth it, sadly), Kazuki Nakajima, the almost-invisible Honda of Jenson Button, the damaged Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella.

Other than Raikkonen and Kovalainen, the only other retirements were Rubens Barrichello, who toured into the pits with a mechanical problem on lap 21, and Nelson Piquet Jr, who continued to be rubbish by spinning off under no pressure at all on lap 14. All in all then, it seemed to be a fantastic end to the race, and a big two fingers up to anyone (i.e. me) who had started the afternoon complaining that the championship fight this year had never really got going. Sadly though, things weren't quite that clean cut. The stewards made their decision later on in the day after a confab with Ferrari and McLaren, and he was duly penalised.

McLaren are appealing, and so, as is traditional, the result of the race will be decided in the FIA's International Court of Appeal. Which is all a bit of a shame.

Just as F1 2008 got going, it has lapsed into tedious sillyness once more.

* - Given 25 second penalty for overtaking under yellow flags.
** - Given 25 second penalty for overtaking.

Drivers Championship Standings :
1 Hamilton 76pts, 2 Massa 74pts, 3 Kubica 58pts, 4 Raikkonen 57pts, 5 Heidfeld 49pts, 6 Kovalainen 43pts, 7 Trulli 26pts, 8 Alonso 23pts, 9 Webber 19pts, 10 Glock 15pts, 11 Piquet Jr, Vettel 13pts, 13 Barrichello 11pts, 14 Rosberg 9pts, 15 Nakajima 8pts, 16 Coulthard 6pts, 17 Bourdais 4pts, 18 Button 3pts.

Constructors Championship Standings :
1 Ferrari 131pts, 2 McLaren 119pts, 3 BMW 107pts, 4 Toyota 41pts, 5 Renault 36pts, 6 Red Bull 25pts, 7 Williams, Toro Rosso 17pts, 9 Honda 14pts.