Rosberg takes pole at Belgian GP; Hamilton at the back

It all started with Ferrari’s crash, followed by a series of multiple contacts especially at the Les Combes chicane.

He has 19 wins, 30 less than Hamilton, who leads him by 19 points in the standings after winning six of the past seven races.

It rendered his qualifying session pointless, and after only four laps he went back to the garage. Fernando Alonso (McLaren) +59.445, 8.

Jenson Button, whose future beyond this season hangs in the balance, was also a first-lap casualty after Pascal Wehrlein drove into the back of his McLaren.

Of the rest, Haas F1’s Romain Grosjean finished Q2 0.265secs shy of Button and a place in the top-ten shoot-out.

He finished out of the points, not what he had been expecting before the race.

The Ferraris were pushed wide and, as a outcome, Raikkonen nudged into the side of Vettel. Certainly Raikkonen was left feeling angry about it.

Ricciardo meanwhile saw off Force India’s Nico Hulkenberg to move into second. 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. The floor of Raikkonen’s auto appeared to catch fire at the rear during his stop, delaying him significantly in the pit lane.

Local hero Max Verstappen was also involved in the scrape after being squeezed out by Vettel, as he lost part of his front wing, forcing him to drop down the field.

He said: “The first lap, there was so much action going on”.

The Dane lost control of his Renault at 190mph going up Eau Rouge and slammed into the barriers.

The force of the impact destroyed the barrier and brought out the safety auto, prompting much of the field to dive inot the pits for fresh tyres.

The huge stunt forced the race to be red flagged while the tyre barrier was fixed.

But with others changing tires, he was soon back up to third. Rosberg was now on mediums, Ricciardo on softs, same as Hulkenberg. Massa 39, 11. Alonso 30, 12.

As the debris settled, the severity of the damage to the barriers required fix and the red flag came out to halt the racing with, remarkably, back row starters Hamilton and Alonso — with a combined total of 120 grid-place penalties — in fifth and fourth respectively.

Verstappen, however, as he has been in the past after tangling with Raikkonen, was unrepentant.

Rosberg joked: “After the chequered flag I looked at the results. He’s only interested in pushing me completely off the track”, said Raikkonen who went ahead to complain, “Hey come on, this is ****ing ridiculous now, he’s moving when I’m at full speed on the right”. “Nice work Lewis, nice work”.

Raikkonen, who is twice Verstappen’s age, let his frustration out, saying: “His only interest is to push me off the track!”

Hamilton though was able to take advantage of the chaos at the start.

There was also almost a collision in the pit lane between Hulkenberg and Alonso on lap 24. Then he found himself in a bind, safely in third but outpaced by second-placed Daniel Ricciardo in the middle sector, and needing to make one more stop to take him to the end. The Brit was now in P4 after that stop, right behind Hulkenberg.

He bowed early out in Q1 with a quickest time of 1:50.033, which comfortably satisfied Formula One’s rule that states a driver must stay within 107% of the fastest time during the first stage of qualifying in order to be permitted to start the race.

However, Hamilton holds on to his lead in the drivers’ championship by nine points following this somewhat unexpected result.