Jenson Button Takes Victory (Amongst Carnage) at 2012 Belgian G

Jenson Button proved to everyone that he still has what it takes as he lead the Belgian Grand Prix form start to finish.

After a treacherous race start, where Romain Grosjean came together with Lewis Hamilton just before the first corner. The Belgian Grand Prix surely promised to be an eventful race. When Grosjean and Hamilton came together, Grosjean was pushed and flew over the front of Fernando Alonso's Ferrari. It was a first corner accident to remember as the three above mentioned were immediately taken out of the race. Sauber's Sergio Perez was also caught up in the racing incident causing his race to end as abruptly as it started, his teammate, Kamui Kobayashi, also suffered damage but was able to make it back to pits. Fortunately enough, no one was hurt (though Alonso did give fan a scare by not exiting his car immediately) and Romain Grosjean was handed a one-race suspension.

After the debris from the collision was cleared and the dust had settled, the safety car entered the pits and the race was back on. Jenson Button completely owned and dominated the race and passed the checkered flag a full 13.6 seconds ahead of Sebastian Vettel, who picked his way through the field from a respectable P10 to P2.

But the drivers that really made an impact the past weekend in Belgium where the pair of Toro Rosso's. It was made evident during the three practices that the two young drivers were out for points. Jean-Eric Vergne came through on the winning end of a race long battle with his teammate Daniel Ricciardo, finishing eighth. Both of these young drivers gained from the first corner accident and when it appeared that they were not 'working' together (as witnessed on the pass of Nico Rosberg), the two battled it out and managed their two stop pit strategy with perfection. The two driver4s brought home the teams first points since Australia.

On a more personal level, what I truly appreciate witnessing was part of the race long battle between the Marussi drivers being partially shown on-air. Being the team's 50th race, both Timo Glock and Charles Pic brought their MR01's home across the checkered line. The battle between the two finally ended when Glock hunted down his young teammate and crossed the line a full 15.5 seconds ahead (even after being involved in a brush with Pastor Maldonado during the 5th lap race restart).

When rain is the norm at the Spa-Francorchamp, it's hard to believe that this year, the race was dotted throughout with steward investigations (and penalties).

Pastor Maldonado was given a (combined) 10 place grid penalty for next weeks race at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, 5 places for his jump start at the beginning of the race and another 5 places for his brush with Glock.

The FIA also investigated two pit-lane incidents. First was when Caterham unsafely released Heikki Kovalainen and he ran into an incoming Karthikeyan, The second when Mark Webber just managed to avoid an incoming Felipe Massa after Red Bull appeared to let him go prematurely as well. The stewards took no further action against Red Bull but fined Caterham 10,000 Euros.

The stewards had also investigated the incident on lap 19 between Michael Schumacher and Sebastian Vettel when Schumacher (on the left hand side of the track defending his position) cut across the front of Vettel's Red Bull as he headed to the pit. To this, the stewards found no further action was needed.

What really received the most negative feedback to the stewards was the action taken against Lotus' Romain Grosjean. The young rookie was given a single race suspension for his actions in the race start collision which took Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez out of the race before the first corner. We have witnessed other drivers taking the same action at race start, pushing hard and in doing so, pushing another driver 'towards the wall'. It just happened to be that Grosjean and Hamilton made contact and resulted in an extremely heart stopping collision. We have seen, in previous races, some drivers even maliciously careen into opposing team drivers, ending their races. In a case like this, the action taken against Romain Grosjean, the crime does not fit the punishment.
 

Full race results

Jenson Button	Winner
Sebastian Vettel	Second      Fan's Choice
Kimi Räikkönen	Third
Nico Hülkenberg	P4
Felipe Massa	P5
Mark Webber	P6
Michael Schumacher	P7
Jean-Éric Vergne	P8
Daniel Ricciardo	P9
Paul di Resta	P10
Nico Rosberg	P11
Bruno Senna	P12
Kamui Kobayashi	P13
Vitaly Petrov	P14
Timo Glock	P15
Charles Pic	P16
Heikki Kovalainen	P17
Pedro de la Rosa	P18
Narain Karthikeyan	Retired (Loose wheel)
Pastor Maldonado	Retired (collision damage)
Sergio Pérez	Retired (collision)
Fernando Alonso	Retired (collision)
Lewis Hamilton	Retired (collision)
Romain Grosjean	Retired (collision)