Lewis Hamilton was able to grab a fifth win of the season in an action packed Belgian Grand Prix, surviving attacks from title rival Sebastian Vettel to close the gap to only seven points on top following an error-free drive around Spa.

The championship leaders went head-to-head the whole race as the Ferrari followed closely behind the Mercedes, but every time giving he pushed, Hamilton responded to all threats managing to keep the German behind.

A late Safety Car, following the second coming together of the two Force Indias in the race on the run to Eau Rouge, looked to have given Vettel the advantage as he switched to the Ultrasoft compared to Hamilton on the Soft's but he was able to fend off the challenge from the four-time world champion before showing excellent pace to go on and claim victory.

Daniel Ricciardo returned Red Bull to the podium for the first since Austria, capitalising on the Safety Car restart to pass Valtteri Bottas around the outside at Les Combes to finish third, after a solid if unspectacular race up til that point. Sadly for the Milton Keynes outfit and the roughly 80,000 Dutch fans in attendance, Max Verstappen was forced to retire for the sixth time this year as yet another Renault engine problem hit his car.

This would disrupt Kimi Raikkonen's race as he was handed a 10-second stop and go penalty for ignoring the double yellow flags to recover the car, however, the Finn was able to take advantage of the Safety car restart too, passing Bottas on the inside of Les Combes moments after Ricciardo had swooped around the outside.

Nico Hulkenberg capitalised on Force India's problems and kept his Renault out of trouble despite a manic first 10 laps taking a well-deserved sixth as Romain Grosjean managed his race well to take his Haas back into the points in seventh.Felipe Massa who made it to eighth after starting sixteenth. Massa was able to take advantage of all the action and trouble around.

Felipe Massa likewise moved up after the Safety Car and gave Williams a good result after a poor qualifying with eighth after starting 16th.

Despite the Force India in-team drama, Esteban Ocon was able to recover to ninth place but his teammate Sergio Perez, who was lucky to escape a penalty for pushing the Frenchman into the pit wall on the old pit straight, wasn't so fortunate as he pulled into retire with three laps to go.

Carlos Sainz completed the top 10 for Toro Rosso as Lance Stroll’s fightback fell just short of grabbing a rewarding point finishing 11th. Daniil Kvyat was able to make his way to 12th as yet more disappointment hit Jolyon Palmer, who suffered a five-place grid drop following a gearbox change after his failure in qualifying and could only manage 13th in the race.

Stoffel Vandoorne was 14th in his first home race after starting at the back ahead of Kevin Magnussen and Marcus Ericsson who came in 15th and 16th respectively and completing the race finishers.

Fernando Alonso had an excellent start initially, moving up to seventh, but would soon drop back outside the points before he was forced to retire once again with engine trouble once again losing power just after the half way mark.

Hamilton’s win cuts Vettel’s championship lead to just seven points ahead of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza in just seven days time.