Button produces emphatic win in Belgian grand prix after dodging first-corner chaos

Championship leader Fernando Alonso was the biggest casualty, ending his run of 23 consecutive races in the points, along with McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton.

The accident was instigated by Lotus’s Romain Grosjean, and not for the first time this year on lap one, while Sauber’s Sergio Perez was also forced into retirement.

Button’s 14th career triumph means he is still 63 points adrift of Alonso, but the 32-year-old McLaren star cannot be discounted after finally finding some form of late.

Reigning champion Sebastian Vettel, who had started 10th after a poor qualifying by his and the team’s standards, finished second to close the gap to Alonso to within a race win at 24 points.

Lotus’s Kimi Raikkonen found himself on the podium for the sixth time this year and is 33 points down in the standings in fourth, one point behind Mark Webber, who was fifth in the race.

Hamilton remains static at 47 points behind Alonso, but with one less race remaining, and heading to Italy next weekend on the back of a week to forget at Spa-Francorchamps.

On Wednesday Hamilton was left mourning the loss of a close aunt, Diane, who lost her battle against cancer.

After some inappropriate tweets were deleted on Saturday following qualifying, Hamilton yesterday incurred the wrath of team principal Martin Whitmarsh after posting telemetry data following an engineers’ briefing earlier on Twitter.

It showed a comparison between qualifying laps of Hamilton and Button from Saturday, but it also offered their rivals vital information as to the performance of the car.

The tweet was deleted around an hour later on the orders of Whitmarsh, but worse was to follow for the 27-year-old within seconds of the start of the 44-lap race.

From seventh on the grid Hamilton was clipped by Grosjean’s Lotus attempting to cut across the Briton.

As the rear-right tyre of Grosjean’s car hit the front-left of Hamilton’s McLaren, it sparked a chain reaction which resulted in the exit of four cars at the first corner La Source hairpin.

As the mayhem unfolded Grosjean and Hamilton collected Alonso and Perez, the latter duo having started from fifth and fourth.

On-board replays showed Grosjean’s Lotus flying over the front of the Ferrari, missing the head of the Spaniard by inches.

After clambering out of their wrecked cars Hamilton could be seen tapping his right forefinger against his helmet at Grosjean, the suggestion obvious that he blamed the Frenchman for the accident. Race stewards agreed and Grosjean was later handed a one-race ban for his part in the first-corner pile-up.

Unsurprisingly after the cahso the safety car was immediately deployed, staying out for the opening four laps, and Button did not put a wheel wrong throughout the remainder of the race, while others behind scrapped over the minor placings.

Delighted Button said: “I still can’t get used to this – talking on the podium it’s quite strange.

“But this circuit is so special to most drivers, the way it flows and the history, so to get a victory here is very special in what has not been an easy year for me.

“We can enjoy this for a little while before we head to Monza.”