Losing none of the momentum, Hamilton kept his foot down and returned to the circuit alongside Alonso, the two side-by-side, barely an inch apart as they rose up Eau Rouge and probably causing a few breathless moments from an already exasperated Ron Dennis.
Nonetheless, Alonso held sway and forced Hamilton to lift to gain a brief psychological advantage, only to realise Raikkonen and Massa had already pulled a nice margin as they surged down to Les Combes.
Just behind,
Nico Rosberg held onto his grid position in fifth, with
Heikki Kovalainen getting a masterful start to jump from ninth to sixth,
Mark Webber seventh and
Nick Heidfeld eighth, the German having embarked on some rather ambitious braking into the first corner and running wide as a result.
If Kovalainen’s strong start brought some smiles to the faces at
Renault then
Giancarlo Fisichella pulling into the pit lane after just one revolution will have brought them back down to earth, the Italian’s dismal weekend ending with suspension problems on the spare car he was forced to take when his race machine developed an engine problem.
With status quo at the front, Raikkonen began to place some air between himself and Massa, with Alonso and Hamilton slipping back, while Rosberg attempted, somewhat in vain, to tag onto the back of the McLaren’s over the first few laps.
Having hinted as much after qualifying, it was evident Kovalainen’s good start had flattered to deceive and he was quickly struggling with his heavy fuel load, prompting Webber and Heidfeld to crawl over the back of the Renault in the early laps. With so much more straight line speed than the weighed down R27, Webber got the run on him up to Les Combes and simply surged around the outside of him on lap three.
Four laps later and Heidfeld was also past, the German proving the re-profiled Bus Stop can still serve up some neat overtaking opportunities by hauling himself up to seventh.
