After a problematic start, Bourdais charged back to sixth. (LAT photo) » More Photos

He beat Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel to the finish line in a photo finish, and the young German will be especially disappointed, as he was in third place entering the final corner. His dry weather tires proved no match for the traction of the inters, and both Heidfeld and Alonso swept by in the final 100 meters. However, Vettel equaled his best result of the year (in Monaco), as Toro Rosso moved ahead of Honda and level with Williams in the constructors’ championship.

In sixth was Robert Kubica, who had a relatively anonymous weekend by his recent standards. He was outqualified by Heidfeld for only the second time all season, and with Hamilton taking a maximum score, the 25-point gap between the two looks all-but-insurmountable given recent form.

Seventh was Sebastien Bourdais, who sprung a surprise by going quickest of all in the Q1 session on Saturday. He was originally third at the beginning of the final lap, and looking likely to be the first Frenchman to take a podium finish in F1 since Jean Alesi at this same circuit 10 years ago for Sauber-Petronas. Like his teammate, he was caught out on the wrong tires and was shuffled back on the final tour, but he still ensured that Toro Rosso scored with two cars for only the second time in their history (after China 2007).

By comparison, when they were the Minardi team, they only managed it twice in 20 years – and one of those was at the six-car U.S. Grand Prix of 2005 (the other one was Britain 1989). The last point on Sunday originally went to a dogged Timo Glock, who emerged from a relatively uncompetitive weekend with his third consecutive points finish, only to also receive a 25-second penalty for passing in the yellow flag zone for Raikkonen’s accident.

This promoted Mark Webber into the points, giving Red Bull their first points for five races, having had a seven race points-scoring run earlier this year. Kovalainen rolled to a halt on the approach to Pouhon on the final lap but was classified in tenth, and of Webber’s teammate David Coulthard, who finished at Spa for the first time since 2004.

Twelfth was Nico Rosberg, on a weekend to forget for the Williams team, who had their worst-ever qualifying performance at Spa-Francorchamps. Probably his most memorable contribution was having Hamilton and Raikkonen go either side of him at Fagnes as they battled for the win in the closing stages. Behind him was Adrian Sutil, who took his best result of the season in 13th place for Force India, ahead of Kazuki Nakajima, who ruined his own chances by spinning at the first corner of the race and being collected by Giancarlo Fisichella.

Right at the back was Jarno Trulli, who made a lightning start to be up with the Ferraris at turn one, but spun at the end of the first lap and never recovered. He ended a lap down in 16th, and continued his curious form here – he’s only ever scored 1 point in his career at Spa, and that came 10 years ago for Prost-Peugeot.