FernandoAlonso.com

Alonso’s hopes have not been dented after his missing in Belgium one of the seven opportunities of moving up positions in the World Championship, to take the lead in the drivers’ classification at the end of the season in his first year with Ferrari. It means only one race less, albeit a lost chance owing to circumstance when the F10 was ready to crown Eau Rouge and the box. In the wet though, this is just what didn’t happen in the classification and halfway through the race. But hope is still alive because there are plenty of events left and Monza is on the horizon, the home of the 'Scuderia' with Alonso before a sea of red flags.

He left Belgium empty-handed because the chaos of the rain was not his ally despite its attraction. Spa lived up to a script of altercations, incidents, and strategies altered by the intermittent rain, but nothing favoured the Spanish driver, who was first struck to starboard and then stranded without a front aileron. Barrichello ripped it off and sent him to the back; when he worked his way up again after the confusion in the garages, back in the points again, he made a mistake and slid into the barrier seven laps from the end. “Two points were no use to anyone and I had to take risks”, he said.
In the World Championship he lost time to Hamilton, who is now 41 points ahead of him, and to Webber, in a race in which everything went wrong. Hamilton left Spa in the lead in the World Championship and with a new victory, his third of the season. He drove a brilliant race calculated to the last detail from the pits, which led him to handle his tyres perfectly both in the dry and in the wet and to retain his lead from the first bend.

The Australian, who started in pole position, had a bad start and had to fight to finish second ahead of Kubica. He was the only Red Bull to score points because Vettel crashed into Button, leaving the McLaren man out of the race; he was penalised with a drive through and had no chance of any points, despite his desperate strategy of alternating wet tyres and extreme wet tyres.

It was a struggle on a slippery track with the drivers fighting to maintain their positions and the managers of the motor-racing teams looking at the radar out of the corners of their eyes. There was even elbowing within the same team when Rosberg passed Schumacher and they actually touched. In two weeks’ time, the temple of speed.

1.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes           1h29m04.268s
 2.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault           +    +1.571
 3.  Kubica        Renault                    +    +3.493
 4.  Massa         Ferrari                    +    +8.264
 5.  Sutil         Force India-Mercedes       +    +9.094
 6.  Rosberg       Mercedes                   +   +12.359
 7.  Schumacher    Mercedes                   +   +15.548
 8.  Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari             +   +16.678
 9.  Petrov        Renault                    +   +23.851
10.  Liuzzi        Force India-Mercedes       +   +34.831
11.  De la Rosa    Sauber-Ferrari             +   +36.019
12.  Buemi         Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +   +39.895
13.  *Alguersuari  Toro Rosso-Ferrari         +   +29.457
14.  Hulkenberg    Williams-Cosworth          +    +1 lap
15.  Vettel        Red Bull-Renault           +    +1 lap
16.  Kovalainen    Lotus-Cosworth             +    +1 lap
17.  Di Grassi     Virgin-Cosworth            +    +1 lap
18.  Glock         Virgin-Cosworth            +    +1 lap
19.  Trulli        Lotus-Cosworth             +    +1 lap
20.  Yamamoto      HRT-Cosworth               +   +2 laps
*Penalised with 20 seconds for missing a chicane