F1: Hamilton Claims the Belgian GP
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton claimed Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix to go top of Formula One overall standings. The English driver passed the finish line first after one hour, 29 minutes and 4.268 seconds, the rest of the podium being completed with Red Bull’s Mark Webber, who lost F1’s leadership and came 1.571 seconds behind Hamilton, and Renault’s Robert Kubrica who came third 3.493 seconds slower than the Britain. It was both a thrilling and chaotic race as Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel caused an accident which attracted McLaren’s Jenson Button too, the last one abandoning at turn 18. However, the Briton declared very happy with the tile, his third of the season.
“It was a great weekend, and very tough racing.” Mark Webber, who won 13 races this year so far, acknowledged Briton’s win after himself had a very poor start. “Lewis deserved the win, he did a good job,” the Australian said. Apart from this, the fight concerning Button and Vettel’s incident didn’t ended though. The Briton blamed ‘confused’ Vettel for the accident, while Red Bull drive also labeled the move as ‘weird’. “I defended my line about three inches on the inside and perhaps Sebastian got confused as to which direction to go,” and Vettel immediately apologized for the turn. “I’m sorry, it was not my intention to destroy his race or mine,” who got also a drive-through penalty for the mistake. “It was a strange incident and so sad because I was fighting for second position,” Button also added. “I thought I was doing a good job of defending with a damaged front wing, I just couldn’t get enough front-end on the car especially through all of the right-handers through the back straight. I was on the inside and it was clear I wasn’t going to let him pass on the inside, but the outside was very clear for him.”
“I’m guessing he Vettel thought I was going to pull from the left and he went on the inside. But he got a little rattled and didn’t know which way to go. I thought I was doing a good job of keeping my position and fairly. It’s a massive blow, I’m really disappointed,” while the German took the blame upon him. “I was faster than him, I knew it would be close,” he explained. “I tried to outbrake him on the outside but then I lost the braking and I couldn’t control the car and crashed into him, ending my race and his. The car wasn’t perfect following the incident with Jenson, I had the penalty and looking back with the rain at the end, we could have managed to get decent points.” Because of the error, Vettel put his team into difficulty to miss a potential fourth one-two finish this year. This is what McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh claimed, too.
“Without Sebastian’s efforts we would be leading the constructors’ championship. We’ve seen how good Jenson is in wet conditions and he was going to be competitive. To me, that incident has impacted on Jenson’s championship and our team. A drive-through penalty seemed pretty light to me. The stewards will be busy reviewing a lot of things from this race so we shall see what happens,” he said. Former world champion Michael Schumacher ended seventh, 15.548 seconds behind the leader Hamilton, while Fernando Alonso came on 21st at 7 laps. His Ferrari team mate Brazilian Felipe Massa handled it better than the Spaniard, to come fourth, 8.264 seconds behind the Briton. It also followed Adrian Sutil on fifth, Nico Rosberg on sixth, Kamui Kobayashi on eighth, Renault’s Vitaly Petrov on ninth and Jaime Alguersuari from Toro Rosso on tenth.
The overall standings are now led by McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton, whose Sunday victory put him top of the table with 182 points, followed by the two Red Bull Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel with 179 points, respective 151.11
