It was a good Sunday out for Ferrari’s Sebastian Vettel, who won the Belgian Grand Prix and cut Lewis Hamilton’s championship lead to just 17 points.

The race wasn’t without drama, though, after a spectacular first lap crash that saw Fernando Alonso and two other drivers unable to continue.

The crash started with Nico Hulkenberg of Renault driving into the rear of Alonso’s McLaren, which then launched it over Charles Leclerc’s Sauber.

Hulkenberg received a 10-place grid penalty at the next race for the incident, but all three were uninjured.

This video provides a number of angles to unpack what went down:

Here’s the BBC report on the accident:

The crash also may have been the first time a grand prix driver was saved from injury by the new halo head-protection device, introduced this year. Television replays showed Alonso’s car bounced off the halo on Leclerc’s car and Alonso said: “I flew over his car and the halo was a good thing to have today. I think for him it helped, looking at the replay. We don’t need to prove it is a good thing to have.”

Hulkenberg…said: “I misjudged my braking point a little bit and there was no real time to recover it.

“Of course I can understand that he [Alonso] is upset and frustrated. So am I, and he has every right to be, but it is racing and these things unfortunately do happen.”

Once the dust had settled, the race for top spot was the main talking point:

Once into the lead, it was clear Vettel had a small but decisive pace advantage over Hamilton and he edged clear, building a 3.9-second lead by lap 14, before the Mercedes began to close in slightly as the pit stops approached.

Hamilton got his deficit down to 3.2secs on lap 20 and pitted on the next lap, but Vettel followed him in the next time around and was able to rejoin in front.

Hamilton was not far behind but not close enough and his hopes were also marginally affected by catching Max Verstappen’s Red Bull, which was running second, just as he wanted to be attacking Vettel.

Hamilton passed Verstappen with ease up the Kemmel straight and was in any case too far back to have made an attempt on Vettel’s lead.

He ended the critical lap 1.5secs behind, after which the race settled into a familiar pattern, with Vettel building a comfortable lead of about five seconds or so and holding it there, and Verstappen equally safe in third nearly 30 seconds behind.

Here’s a look at the driver’s championship table as it now stands:

Next Sunday sees the Italian Grand Prix take place at the Autodromo Nazionale Monza track.

[source:bbc]