Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo finished second while his team-mate Max Verstappen, roared on by an army of Dutch fans, could manage only 11th following a first-corner collision involving the Ferrari duo of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel.
Advertisement
A series of changes to his engine components resulted in world championship leader Hamilton accumulating a 55-place grid demotion, with FP3 and qualifying on Saturday instead used to tune the vehicle up for the race, rather than showing pace.
But perhaps Hamilton will consider that he was the real victor on a day of dramatic crashes that led to a safety vehicle being deployed and then a red flag, meaning all cars had to return to the pits before a restart.
At the re-start he then made further progress, passing McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg, before eventually bring his vehicle home third, a result that sees him retain his Championship lead, 9 points up on team-mate, Nico Rosberg, who took the victory.
The huge stunt forced the race to be red flagged while the tyre barrier was fixed.
The result means Hamilton stay top of the drivers’ standings, nine points ahead of Rosberg, who collected his first win in Spa, his sixth of the season and the 20th of his career.
“The vehicle was great in the race so of course everything still needs to come together and the start is critical and then with the red flag and everything it becomes a bit more complicated and messy”.
But with only 22 competitors, Hamilton will start no lower than the 21st place in which he qualified.
While Rosberg would maintain his lead at the head of the order, even extending it to 14.1sec over Ricciardo by the end of the race, Hamilton was the man on the move.
“I definitely wasn’t expecting that and there have been races I’ve done where I’ve needed something like that and it’s not happened”. He then overtook Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg to claim third, two places behind his race-winning team-mate Rosberg.
“In our race, the medium, was the right tyre”.
“I’m feeling great, it was a ideal result”, he said. “I am so happy and proud of everyone”. He pitted again for a final time with 12 laps remaining, but was unable to close the gap to either Ricciardo or Rosberg, and crossed the line almost 30 seconds adrift of his Mercedes team-mate.
“If someone had said ‘You’re going to lose 10 points and take three new engines, are you OK with that?’ I’d have said I’d take it, so I’m very happy with it”.
Advertisement
The Force Indias of Sergio Perez and Nico Hulkenburg were next, with the top 10 rounded off by Valtteri Bottas, Jenson Button and Felipe Massa.
