F1: Vettel reduces championship contenders

Spa is mad track - and all the more wonderful for it. It's one of the few remaining grand prix circuits that have natural character. There are trees, mountains and a 7km length. It's so long that cars don't do a slowing down lap and drive the wrong way up the pit lane at the end of the race to the holding centre.

It has a microclimate - dry one minute, wet the next. And it's unpredictable - rain may or may not come, it may or may not fall from clouds that may or may not pass overhead. And, because of its length, it can be totally dry at one end and drenched at the other.

It's a track that sorts the men from the boys.

Vettel is clearly one of the latter. Once again, an ill considered move caused a high-speed crash. This time his victim was Button. Failing to recognise the change in weather, he slammed on the brakes too late and slithered around in the damp patch.

Vettel's car, out of control, snapped first one way, then - apparently hitting a dry spot, leaped at right angles into the right side-pod of Button's car, smashing it and the radiator and other parts within it to bits. Vettel broke his nose cone and simply drove into the pits for what was, basically, a routine stop. Button, in his usual understated way, said after the race "Clearly, he didn’t do it on purpose, and I gather he’s now apologised, but I have to say I’ve got no idea what he was doing."

For Button no points is a "massive blow" to his world championship expectations.

Vettel was awarded a drive through penalty.

Vettel's comments, as reported by F1.Com are almost dismissive. "What happened, happened and we can’t change it now. Obviously I’m not proud of it, I lost the car going over the bump as I was braking and unfortunately hit Jenson, so he couldn’t continue. I’m sorry for him. We’ll have to see what we can do at the next races.”

Not redress the balance, one suspects.

But it was not Vettel's only incident: a few laps later, he tried to squeeze Liuzzi off the track on the last corner. Liuzzi held his line, Vettel cut across taking Liuzzi's front wing off. But in a rare example of poetic justice, Liuzzi was able to carry on regardless, losing only a few seconds on the way back to the pits. Vettel, however, suffered a deflated rear tyre and lost a huge amount of time struggling back to the pits on three wheels for almost a full lap. He ended the race a lap down on all the points scorers and finished battling down amongst the new teams, scoring a big, fat, and well deserved zero.

As for Alonso, he, too, scored no points with a multiple-360 degree spin that bounced him into the tyre wall nose first twice, then rear end first and then parked his car across the track on the exit from a near-blind corner, resulting in the second safety car of the day.

So, as the weekend ends, the championship looks like a battle between Hamilton who won in Spa and Webber who's dismal start from pole was redressed by a series of inherited places from Button, Vettel and, eventually, Kubica who had a slow pit stop having missed his box.

If that sounds like Webber didn't deserve his second place, it's not meant to. Winning at Spa, in conditions that can change at a moment's notice, is almost like endurance racing. Drivers have to be there at the end to stand any chance of scoring points. That both Webber and Hamilton came away almost unscathed when others had multiple visits to the off-track zones - either under their own steam or as a result of the indiscretions of others, shows that the best way to score big at Spa is simply to stay out of trouble.

And that, in itself, is a tremendous skill.