His win saw him reduce Hamilton’s advantage in the title race to just nine points.
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Rosberg won the action-packed race, with Hamilton in third and Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo second. “Not eventually in the race, but up until then they were very close, but it worked out with a flawless weekend for me and Lewis did a great job to finish third”.
“It’s great for the team that Lewis was able to recover to finish in third place, so overall a great result for us”. “It has definitely not been the easiest season battling for the title”. That was because both drivers incurred a myriad of complex grid penalties for extra engine part changes this weekend.
Rosberg retained the lead on the short run down to La Source, but it was utter chaos behind the German.
The pole-sitting Rosberg kept the lead at the start and was never headed, after his main rivals, fellow front-row starter Max Verstappen and the Ferrari pair of Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel, collided at the first corner.
Although overtaken by Alonso, Hamilton was still up to 15th by the end of lap one as Verstappen, Nasr, Vettel, Button and Raikkonen all pitted with damage.
Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz lost control when his rear right tyre blew out, sending him pirouetting to an improvised halt on the grass. After the safety auto came out, the race was halted on lap 10 of 44 as the battered barrier needed repairing.
Magnussen emerged from the wreck, hobbled away and was taken to hospital for checks for a cut to his left ankle.
While Magnussen’s vehicle was in bits, so too was the tyre wall at Eau Rouge, and the real safety auto was deployed. This immensely helped Hamilton and Alonso, who skirted the scene of the early carnage in front of them, and gained places. Hamilton’s endeavour has earned him fifteen points in the race. taking his total 232 points, which is a tad bit ahead of Rosberg’s 223.
On lap 12 he swept past Alonso, and six laps later he was in a podium position after easing past the Force India of Nico Huelkenberg, but that is where his charge ended.
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Hamilton battled his way through from 21st on the grid after serving a series of penalties for three power unit changes, his progress assisted by numerous incidents. He pitted again for a final time with 12 laps remaining, but was unable to close the gap on either Ricciardo or Rosberg, and crossed the line almost 30 seconds adrift of his Mercedes team-mate. Things have happened in the right way, that second quarter of the season, and to go into the break 19 points ahead and only lose 10 points today, is. well, if someone had said, going into the break that “you are going to lose 10 points in the next race and take three new engines, are you okay with that?” The team did an awesome job.
