By Andrew Benson
McLaren's Lewis Hamilton survived a frantic last two laps in a late shower of rain to win the Belgian Grand Prix.
Hamilton lost the lead to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen with an early Kovalainen claims maiden victory ...
Ferrari fastest in first practice ... spin but fought back in the closing laps to re-take the lead with two laps to go.
In a dramatic climax on a soaking track, Hamilton passed Raikkonen, lost the lead again with a spin, re-took it and then saw Raikkonen crash.
Ferrari's Felipe Massa took second and is now eight points behind Hamilton.
The world champion's error has left him 23 points behind Hamilton and effectively out of the championship running.
Even more humiliating for Raikkonen is that he is now fourth in the championship, a point behind BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica.
And there was more drama after the race when it emerged that Hamilton and Raikkonen were under investigation by race stewards for incidents that occurred in the late battle.
In a chaotic final couple of laps, BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld jumped from eighth to third place with an inspired decision to come in for wet-weather tyres at the start of the last lap.
Renault's Fernando Alonso chose the same tactic and it secured the double world champion the fourth place he had held for much of the race.
"It was an experience and a half," Hamilton said. "I was praying for rain. I wanted it to come because I knew how to deal with it.
"The heavens opened and I saw Kimi begin to back off and to brake a bit earlier.
"I was going reasonably wide at Turn 12 but Rosberg spun and went off where I was coming back on. I went over the grass. It was incredibly tough.
"Kimi pushed me wide. I was a little bit ahead. I was outside on Turn One, I had no room and he basically pushed me so I went on the escape route.
"So I let him past, then got in his tow and he was ducking and diving left and right but I managed to get past him and I was pretty much gone from there."
It was another superb performance in the wet from Hamilton, who has inherited Michael Schumacher's mantle as Formula One's rain master.
But for a long time it had looked as if the Englishman had tossed away his chance of victory on the daunting Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
The race started with the track wet in the immediate vicinity of the pits but dry on the majority of the lap.
Hamilton, along with every other driver in the race other than Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr, chose dry tyres.
But the conditions caught him out at the start of lap two, and he spun turning into the La Source hairpin.
The mistake put Raikkonen right behind him and the Ferrari driver simply drove past on the straight after the Eau Rouge esses.
It was a critical error from Hamilton, who was fuelled to make his first pit stop a lap earlier than Raikkonen.
That meant his main hope of holding off the Ferrari driver was to build a lead big enough before his stop on lap 10 that Raikkonen could not close it on his extra lap.
Instead, although Hamilton shadowed Raikkonen to the first stops, he could not pass him.
Hamilton's hopes were further dented when he came out from his pit stop right behind his slower team-mate Heikki Kovalainen, who was battling for position with Kubica.
By the time he had cleared Kovalainen and Kubica five laps later, Raikkonen was five seconds ahead, a lead he was able to maintain comfortably to the second round of stops.
The two men both made their final stops on lap 25 and on the harder tyre Hamilton was able to close on the Ferrari.
The 23-year-old shaved about half a second a lap out of Raikkonen's lead and was within two seconds of the Ferrari by lap 31.
He was unable to make much more of an impression until the predicted late shower of rain arrived with about five laps to go.
Within minutes, the back of the circuit was soaking, while it remained dry in the vicinity of the pits - not an unusual situation at a track renowned for its capricious weather.
Hamilton closed right up to Raikkonen on lap 42 and although he thought better of a move at the Bus Stop chicane at the end of the lap, he passed him going into the La Source hairpin at the opposite end of the pit straight.
But that was not the end of the battle.
When the two men reached the wet part of the track halfway around the lap, Hamilton slid off, handing the lead back to Raikkonen, who almost immediately lost it again by sliding off himself.
The Finn then lost control going through the fast Blanchimont corner, and speared into the wall.
Provisional result at Belgian Grand Prix:
1. Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes one hour 22 minutes 44.933 seconds
2. Felipe Massa (Brz) Ferrari 14.461 seconds behind
3. Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber +23.844
4. Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault +28.939
5. Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Toro Rosso-Ferrari +29.037
6. Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber +29.498
7. Sebastien Bourdais (Fra) Toro Rosso-Ferrari +31.196
8. Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota +56.506
9. Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault +57.237
10. Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes one lap behind
11. David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault one lap
12. Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota one lap
13. Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India-Ferrari one lap
14. Kazuki Nakajima (Jpn) Williams-Toyota one lap
15. Jenson Button (GB) Honda one lap
16. Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota one lap
17. Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India-Ferrari one lap
18R Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari two laps
R Rubens Barrich ello (Brz) Honda 19 laps completed
R Nelson Piquet (Brz) Renault 31 laps
Key: R = retired
Fastest lap: Raikkonen, 1:47.930, lap 24
(BBC)
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