Vettel wins with ease

SEBASTIAN VETTEL eased to a dominant victory in the Belgian Grand Prix ahead of title rivals Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton. The German’s victory in his Red Bull, his fifth in 11 races this season, moved him 46 points clear of Ferrari driver Alonso in the championship with 200 still available. The Spaniard moved up from ninth on the grid with a brilliant first few laps but could do nothing about the imperious Vettel.

Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen, another title contender, retired with brake failure at Spa Francorchamps.
The Finn has fallen 14 points behind Hamilton to fourth place in the championship and is now 63 points adrift of Vettel and facing an uphill battle to get back into contention. Vettel, by contrast, looks all but unstoppable after one of the most comfortable victories of the year.

“It was a fantastic race for us,” said Vettel. “From start to finish really, very good tactics — it helped the first lap to have the tow off Lewis into Eau Rouge. Once I passed him I had incredible pace and could control the race.”

Vettel built a 2,8-second lead after just two laps, at which point his engineer Guillaume Roquelin told him to “save tyres”, adding: “We don’t need any more than this.”

Vettel continued to inch away and was never troubled thereafter. Behind him, Alonso made impressive progress after qualifying in ninth place.
An aggressive first lap, including passing Red Bull’s Mark Webber into Eau Rouge, put him up to fifth place, after which he passed McLaren’s Jenson Button into fourth on lap four and Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg into third on lap six. Alonso then took second place from Hamilton on lap 14, after the Englishman made an error going into La Source and ran wide.

Alonso overtook him going down the hill into Eau Rouge and then just managed to fight Hamilton off into the Les Combes chicane at the end of the long Kemmel straight, despite the Mercedes having use of its DRS overtaking aid.

Alonso inched away from Hamilton but could do nothing about Vettel as the Red Bull controlled the pace at the front and Hamilton was left to successfully fend off team-mate Rosberg and Webber in the final stint of the race. — BBC Sport.