1. Lewis Hamilton Britain McLaren-Mercedes 44 laps 1hr 29m 04.268s
2. Mark Webber Australia Red Bull-Renault +1.5s
3. Robert Kubica Poland Renault-Renault +3.4s
4. Felipe Massa Brazil Ferrari-Ferrari +8.2s
5. Adrian Sutil Germany Force India-Mercedes +9.0s
6. Nico Rosberg Germany Mercedes-Mercedes +12.3s
7. Michael Schumacher Germany Mercedes-Mercedes +15.5s
8. Kamui Kobayashi Japan BMW Sauber-Ferrari +16.6s
9. Vitaly Petrov Russia Renault-Renault +23.8s
10. Jaime Alguersuari Spain Toro Rosso-Ferrari +29.4s

11. Vitantonio Liuzzi Italy Force India-Mercedes +34.8s
12. Pedro de la Rosa Spain BMW Sauber-Ferrari +36.0s
13. Sebastien Buemi Switzerland Toro Rosso-Ferrari +39.8s
14. Nico Hulkenberg Germany Williams-Cosworth +1 lap
15. Sebastian Vettel Germany Red Bull-Renault +1 lap
16. Heikki Kovalainen Finland Lotus-Cosworth +1 lap
17. Lucas di Grassi Brazil Virgin-Cosworth +1 lap
18. Timo Glock Germany Virgin-Cosworth +1 lap
19. Jarno Trulli Italy Lotus-Cosworth +1 lap
20. Sakon Yamamoto Japan HRT-Cosworth +2 laps

Rtd. Fernando Alonso Spain Ferrari-Ferrari 37 laps completed (crashed)
Rtd. Jenson Button Britain McLaren-Mercedes 15 laps completed (accident)
Rtd. Bruno Senna Brazil HRT-Cosworth 5 laps completed
Rtd. Rubens Barrichello Brazil Williams-Cosworth 0 laps completed (accident)

Fastest lap:

Lewis Hamilton Britain McLaren-Mercedes 1m 49.069s lap 32

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.

1. Mark Webber Australia Red Bull-Renault 1m 45.184s
2. Lewis Hamilton Britain McLaren-Mercedes 1m 45.863s
3. Robert Kubica Poland Renault-Renault 1m 46.100s
4. Sebastian Vettel Germany Red Bull-Renault 1m 46.127s
5. Jenson Button Britain McLaren-Mercedes 1m 46.206s
6. Felipe Massa Brazil Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 46.314s
7. Rubens Barrichello Brazil Williams-Cosworth 1m 46.602s
8. Adrian Sutil Germany Force India-Mercedes 1m 46.659s
9. Nico Hulkenberg Germany Williams-Cosworth 1m 47.053s
10. Fernando Alonso Spain Ferrari-Ferrari 1m 47.441s

11. Michael Schumacher Germany Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 47.874s**
12. Nico Rosberg Germany Mercedes-Mercedes 1m 47.885s*
13. Jaime Alguersuari Spain Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 48.267s
14. Vitantonio Liuzzi Italy Force India-Mercedes 1m 48.680s
15. Sebastien Buemi Switzerland Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1m 49.209s
16. Heikki Kovalainen Finland Lotus-Cosworth 1m 50.980s
17. Timo Glock Germany Virgin-Cosworth 1m 52.049s

18. Jarno Trulli Italy Lotus-Cosworth 2m 01.491s
19. Kamui Kobayashi Japan BMW Sauber-Ferrari 2m 02.284s
20. Bruno Senna Brazil HRT-Cosworth 2m 03.612s
21. Sakon Yamamoto Japan HRT-Cosworth 2m 03.941s
22. Pedro de la Rosa Spain BMW Sauber-Ferrari 2m 05.294s
23. Lucas di Grassi Brazil Virgin-Cosworth 2m 18.754s
24. Vitaly Petrov Russia Renault-Renault no time

all times unofficial

* denotes driver due to take five-place penalty; ** denotes driver due to take ten-place penalty

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.