Jenson Button wins Belgian Grand Prix

September 03, 2012 / 17:05 IST

A car carnage, triggered by Lotus' Romain Grosjean, saw championship points leader Fernando Alonso, and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, retire from the race in the first lap itself, but it was McLaren's Jenson Button who pulled off the race in style to win his first Belgian grand prix. He finished 13.6s ahead of Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel who drove with a clever team strategy to finish second. Lotus' Kimi Raikkonen took the last step of the podium and valuable championship points. Team mate Grosjean is handed a one race ban and 50,000 Euro for causing the accident.

Force India's Nico Hulkenburg finished a splendid fourth after beating Raikkonen and Mercedes' Schumacher in early part of the race and running second for some laps. Felipe Massa brought home his Ferrari in fifth after a hard fought battle with Red Bull's Mark Webber, who finished sixth. Schumacher finished seventh after a late tyre stop and loss of sixth gear in his car.

Jean-Eric Vergne and Danial Riccardo of Toro Rosso finished eighth and ninth respectively, Force India's Paul Di Resta finished tenth place in the race to bring a valuable point for his team.

Pastor Maldonado has received two more penalties for next race (this season has already seen him getting into trouble plenty of times), for brushing his car with Timo Glock at the restart on lap five, he has been handed a 5 place grid penalty in Monza for that incident, another five place grid penalty for jump start.