Way too early for title talk, insists Hamilton

Hamilton is now 28 points ahead of his Mercedes team-mate with eight races remaining after his first win at this most historic of races in five years.

Holding off the challenge from the Force India of Sergio Perez on the run down to Les Combes – the scene of his collision with Rosberg at the track last year – pole-sitter Hamilton never looked back, and from there he made it look easy.

Hamilton left this race last year trailing Rosberg by 29 points and still went on to win the title.

Last night he left the iconic Spa-Francorchamps with clear daylight between him and the German.

But the 30-year-old warned it is not a foregone conclusion he will become the first British driver to successfully defend his F1 crown.

“It is definitely way too early for that,” Hamilton said, following his sixth victory of the season and the 39th of his career.

“You want to get those pole positions and translate them into wins and hopefully this is the beginning of that, so I am looking forward to the next races.

“Nico had good pace, but I was able to answer most of the time, so I was fairly relaxed at the front.”

Upon F1’s return to action after a four-week summer break, much had been made of the new start procedures.

Rosberg was gobbled up on the run down to turn one at the start to leave him in fifth. It was always going to be an uphill struggle from there. “The start was really bad so I need to practice that,” said Rosberg who recovered to finish second. “I was trying to hunt Lewis down but he did a great job and it wasn’t enough.”

Joining the Mercedes duo on the podium was the surprise name of Romain Grosjean, the Lotus driver a beneficiary of Sebastian Vettel’s tyre blowout on the penultimate lap.

Vettel, in his 150th race, was the only driver to attempt a one-strop strategy after starting from ninth, but it backfired in spectacular fashion and he finished outside of the points.

His tyre failure was the second of the weekend.