Sebastian Vettel led every lap of the Belgian Grand Prix en route to a comfortable victory at Spa-Francorchamps on Sunday.

At the start, Lewis Hamilton had maintained his pole position through La Source, but chaos would ensue behind as Nico Hulkenberg smashed into the back of Fernando Alonso, sending the McLaren over the top of Charles Leclerc's Sauber.

In a crash very reminiscent of Romain Grosjean's aerial incident in 2012, the Halo would this time protect the Monegasque as Alonso's car was seen bouncing off the cockpit protection device.

Daniel Ricciardo's Red Bull would also be hit by the flying McLaren, damaging his rear wing, with the Australian then running into the back of Kimi Raikkonen, giving the Finn a puncture.

Up ahead, Vettel made the decisive move with a perfect run through Eau Rouge behind the Mercedes and would breeze past along the Kemmel Straight as the straight line speed of the Ferrari proved too much.

Both Force India's, starting third and fourth, also looked to attack into Les Combes with Esteban Ocon almost able to slide into the lead as the top four briefly ran side-by-side, but it was the German that emerged in front.

Finally, the Safety Car would be called to clear the debris back at La Source, bringing a frantic first few kilometres to a close.

When the races restarted, Hamilton considered a pass into the Bus Stop chicane before backing out but would lose ground and prevented the Briton from attacking into Les Combes on the next lap.

It was then that the pace advantage of Vettel was revealed as he pulled away by 1.6 seconds on the opening lap before going on to create a three-second margin in short order.

Having moved up to fifth in the early battles, Max Verstappen went on to catch and pass Ocon and then Perez with textbook moves into Les Combes to claim third.

Starting from 17th after engine penalties, Valtteri Bottas was another driver to suffer damage at La Source after hitting Sergey Sirotkin but, after pitting, he too would make his way through the field, including a great move on Brendon Hartley through Eau Rouge.

In the build-up to the pit-stops, Hamilton would start to close the gap to Vettel ahead and would attempt the undercut by stopping early but, despite gaining over two seconds, it wouldn't be enough as the Ferrari driver changed tyres a lap later and remained in front.

From that point on, the same pattern re-emerged as the Ferrari stretched away, going on to take the checkered flag by 11 seconds from the world champion with Verstappen having a lonely run to the final podium place in third

Bottas' recovery continued with move after move on the Kemmel Straight and eventually, the Mercedes driver would make it up to fourth as the advantage of the top three teams over the rest again proved very significant.

Raikkonen and Ricciardo would later retire, as the Finn had a problem with his DRS and the Australian accepted defeat after falling a lap down from the Lap 1 damage.

Perez and Ocon still gave Force India plenty to be happy about as they led the midfield in fifth and sixth, at the same time scoring enough points to jump right back up to ninth in the Constructors' Championship having lost all their points from the first 12 races after changing owner.

Haas looked to hunt them down but their chase was fruitless with Romain Grosjean and Kevin Magnussen seventh and eighth.

Pierre Gasly produced another solid performance to finish ninth for Toro Rosso as Marcus Ericsson enjoying an entertaining back-and-forth battle with Brendon Hartley en route to scoring the final point in 10th.

Renault left Francorchamps empty-handed as Carlos Sainz finished 11th, ahead of the two Williams' as Sergey Sirotkin again led teammate Lance Stroll.

Hartley would drop back to 14th with Stoffel Vandoorne having the unwelcome stat of finishing as the last classified runner in every session during his home race weekend in 15th.

The full finishing order can be seen below:

Far from a classic Belgian Grand Prix with the decisive moment coming on the opening lap, but it was still a crucial victory for Sebastian Vettel to stop Hamilton's momentum and reduce his championship lead to 17 points as F1 heads straight to Monza for the Italian GP this weekend.