McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton comes through to win a rain-affected Belgian Grand Prix, leading from start-to-finish despite very tricky changeable conditions.

Hamilton, who qualified second, moved up into P1 at the off, when pole sitter, Mark Webber got bogged down and slipped to sixth.

Hamilton then pulled away and despite two safety car periods and a late scare at the end, when he went off when another rain shower hit the Spa circuit, he held on and eventually took the maximum 25 points.

Webber meanwhile recovered from his bad start to take the runners-up in his Red Bull, getting the better of Robert Kubica in the closing stages when the Pole made a mistake when he came in to change tyres and overshot his pit box.

Mark Webber ensured that Red Bull will start from the front of the grid for the twelfth time in 13 races this season after securing his fifth pole position of the 2010 F1 campaign at Spa.

After a dramatic qualifying session which once again saw the weather play a part in proceedings in Belgium, the championship leader posted the quickest time seen so far this weekend although a number of his rivals were left to rue the conditions in one of the most exciting qualifying sessions of the year.

Having successfully survived rain earlier in the session to make it through to Q3, Webber posted a time of 1min 45.778secs on his first flying lap in the ten-minute fight for pole with the return of light rain-fall around the pits hampering his rivals as they attempted to better his benchmark.

McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton was the only man able to get anywhere near the Australian despite the rain at La Source leaving conditions far from ideal and he crossed the line on his final flying lap just 0.085 behind his Red Bull rival.

Prior to Hamilton’s late flyer, Robert Kubica had looked good to put Renault on the front row in its first weekend running the new F-duct on its car but the Pole had to settle for third place, with Sebastian Vettel in the second of the Red Bulls alongside him on the second row. Both drivers set their best times on the first flying lap of the session.

Jenson Button was fifth quickest as he also bettered his time on the final lap of the session which was enough to demote Felipe Massa down to sixth place, with Rubens Barrichello and Adrian Sutil sharing row four. Nico Hulkenberg starts from ninth place but Fernando Alonso could only manage tenth after failing to improve on a poor first run in Q3 when he was caught out by the damp conditions at turn one.

The second stage of qualifying had been run on a drying track with the quick laps coming late on as a result, but neither Mercedes was able to make it through Q2 – something which the team had desperately hoped for with Michael Schumacher and Nico Rosberg going into qualifying aware of the fact that they faced penalties following the session.

Schumacher could only manage eleventh quickest – ironically being knocked out of a Q3 place by Barrichello – while Rosberg was behind in twelfth. Schumacher will now take a ten place drop on the grid for the move he pulled on Barrichello late on in Hungary, while Rosberg drops five places after the team was forced to change the gearbox on his car ahead of qualifying.

Toro Rosso pair Jaime Alguersuari and Sebastien Buemi both fell at the second hurdle as did the Force India of Tonio Liuzzi – who was one of number of people to spin during the session. While the likes of Sutil, Alonso and Massa all survived similar incidents to progress to Q3, Liuzzi wasn’t so lucky.

Mark Webber took full advantage of a bizarre set of circumstances to claim his fourth grand prix victory of the season and move to the head of the Formula One world championship standings.

The Australian, starting second on the grid, suffered from the Hungaroring’s infamous ‘dirty side’ and dropped to third on the road behind Red Bull team-mate Sebastian and Fernando Alonso, who made the most of lining up first and third to duel over top spot into the opening turn. However, when the safety car appeared just 15 laps into the race, things turned Webber’s way.

Vettel appeared set for a comfortable afternoon after bolting away in the opening laps, running nearly a second faster than Alonso to build up a sizeable gap over the Spaniard, who had Webber contained in third and attempting to keep his Red Bull cool on another hot Hungaroring afternoon.

Felipe Massa, who had lined up behind the Australian was already being dropped in fourth, while championship leader Lewis Hamilton had to find a way past a fast-starting Vitaly Petrov on lap two to remain in the hunt.

Jenson Button, after his poor qualifying show, saw his race get tougher after dropping to 15th in the first corner melee, with Nico Rosberg, Robert Kubica, Rubens Barrichello, Nico Hulkenberg, Pedro de la Rosa, Adrian Sutil and Michael Schumacher between the Briton and his team-mate in fifth.

The reigning world champion was the first to pit, stopping on lap 14 to switch to the softer Bridgestone tyre option, and was joined in service by Force India’s Vitantonio Liuzzi who, for the second race in a row, needed a new front wing in the early stages.

The Italian’s problem, however, would have big implications for the outcome of the race, as the stewards decided to deploy the safety car to aid the recovery of debris from the track. That prompted the majority of the field to complete their mandatory change of tyres, with Vettel responding to a late call from the Red Bull pit by bouncing over the kerbs bounding the entry lane.

However, although the German had enough of a lead to ensure that RBR would not have to stack its drivers, Webber remained on track, moving from third to first as Alonso also stopped. Hamilton and Massa joined their fellow frontrunners in pitting, with the Briton appearing to be the big winner by vaulting past his Brazilian rival.

There was drama in pit-lane too, with Nico Rosberg losing his right rear wheel as he pulled back into the ‘fast lane’ and mechanics at Sauber and Williams being forced to scatter as the errant part careered into their garage area.

Sebastian Vettel claimed his fourth pole in a row and his seventh of the season today, as Red Bull Racing enjoyed probably its most dominant qualifying of the year ahead of this Sunday’s F1 2010 Hungarian Grand Prix.

Following Red Bull’s form in practice, there was little doubt it would be a two-horse battle for top spot at the Hungaroring, and in the end it was Vettel who got the most from his Renault-powered RB6, convincingly beating his team-mate, Mark Webber, by more than four tenths of a second.

Vettel had been quickest in Friday practice, and while he had to settle for second to the Aussie in FP3 this morning, he seemed to have the measure of him in qualifying, five tenths up in Q1 – on a 1m 20.417s lap – and only 0.042 seconds slower in Q2. When it matter though, he really stamped his authority on proceedings and was the only man to break the 1 minute 19 second barrier, his pole lap a 1 minute 18.773 seconds.

Webber’s best time meanwhile was a 1m 19.184s and that was also way quicker than any of the other drivers, with Fernando Alonso ‘best of the rest’ in his Ferrari, albeit eight tenths slower on a 1m 19.987s.

Felipe Massa, who was badly injured at this race last season, and robbed of victory in Germany last Sunday, came fourth in the sister car, while McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton had to settle for fifth. Crucially though, Hamilton was more than 1.5 seconds off the Red Bull’s, although as McLaren boss, Martin Whitmarsh pointed out he was ‘fastest of the fixed wing cars’, a reference to the ‘flexible’ front wings currently being utilised by both Red Bull Racing and Ferrari.

Nico Rosberg rounded out the top six in his Mercedes, half a second off Hamilton and two tenths up on Renault duo Vitaly Petrov and Robert Kubica. Petrov had a fine session and for the record, managed to out-qualifying his vastly more experienced team-mate for the first time this season.

Sauber’s Pedro de la Rosa and Williams man Nico Hulkenberg came in ninth and tenth, both managing to edge out Jenson Button, who for the third time this season did not progress to Q3 and the shoot-out for pole. Button will start eleventh in his McLaren.

Fellow F1 world champion, Michael Schumacher also didn’t make it through the second session, and he was only fourteenth in his Mercedes, leaving the Williams of Rubens Barrichello and Force India’s Adrian Sutil sandwiched in between. Further down the order, Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari took P15 and P17 on the grid, with Vitantonio Liuzzi 16th for Force India.

Kamui Kobayashi was the ‘fall-guy’ in Q1 after traffic meant he failed to make it through in the latter stages. The Sauber ace, a scorer in two of the last three races, found himself held up by Bruno Senna on his last flying lap, and pitted when he realised that his time would not be good enough to progress.

Kobayashi joined the expected sextet from the three newcomer teams in bowing out at the first hurdle, although in a change to the norm, Timo Glock put Virgin Racing ahead of arch rival Lotus with a last-ditch lap that proved good enough to topple Heikki Kovalainen from the ‘division three pole’. Jarno Trulli, Lucas di Grassi, Senna and Sakon Yamamoto complete the line-up for Sunday’s grand prix.