As someone who thought that Hamilton had behaved like a total tosser (that being a technical F1 term) in 2007-08, I will say that there has been much more to like about his attitude this year. Yes, we presume he is still in a schmaltzy relationship with Nicole Scherzinger. And yes, he is still far from angelic, noting his hooning incident in Melbourne this year and some of his more petulant radio messages earlier in the season when things were not going to plan.

But overall, he learnt some much-needed humility through the travails of 2009, and this season he has been about brilliant driving and absolute maximisation behind the wheel, hard work, greater respect for his competitors, and less-nonsense answers in press conferences compared to the publicocrap of the past (another technical term, for those of you who have not listened to the F1 Rejects podcast). His performance throughout the Spa weekend was the epitome of what the 2010-vintage Hamilton is all about.

His final qualifying lap in Q3 was one of the laps of the season, the only main contender to improve his time in drizzly conditions thanks to a stunning middle sector. By and large he was faultless during the race too, despite having the most to lose when he encountered changing conditions, except for his off at Rivage when the final shower arrived. But he deserved his fortune in just nudging the tyre wall, getting out of the gravel, keeping his lead, and holding on for his third victory of the season.

Lewis knew he had to maximise at Spa and Monza where McLaren’s awesome F-duct system would come to the fore. Mark Hughes has written an excellent article on the BBC website suggesting that the more stringent tests designed to circumvent flexi-wings may not necessarily have curbed Red Bull’s edge; their lack of advantage in Belgium was because they were running less downforce to avoid being eaten alive on the straights. There’s still reason to expect that Red Bull will be back on top post-Italy.

The other man who came to the Ardennes with the attitude of needing to maximise come what may, and who did just that, was Webber. You could say he was fortunate again and that circumstances fell into his lap as they have on other occasions this year, because he had set the best Q3 lap on the first runs and then rain started falling. But alternatively you could also say that whereas others were putting in banker laps, he deliberately went for it on his first run knowing that rain might come.

The fluffed start off pole was not his fault, and having survived Adrian Sutil’s assault when the Force India ran wide at Les Combes, he completed lap one in 6th. Whilst he was somewhat lucky once more in that he ended up 2nd whilst only passing Felipe Massa on track - and decisively so around the outside of Rivage - the point is that he did not make any errors whereas those around him did. It’s a sign of the mental strength that has carried him so far this season, aside from Australia, China and Valencia.

Both Hamilton and Webber are now ahead of their team-mates by more than one win’s worth in points, but that in itself is not reason enough why their teams should favour them from now on; this year’s points system means that things can turn quickly. The more compelling argument is the trend of how this season has been going. Hamilton has consistently had the wood on Jenson Button since the European leg began, and Webber has kept racking up the points while Sebastian Vettel has thrown them away.

Button was obviously not at fault in his collision with Vettel. But the reality is that he had qualified well behind Hamilton, made up for it with a terrific start, lost out again when he like everyone else went off at the Bus Stop chicane but rejoined the track proper much quicker whilst others kept taking the short cut, but gained it all back on slicks on a damp track. Yet with a slightly damaged front wing he was clearly holding up Vettel, Kubica, Webber and Massa.

At best he was going to concede more points to Hamilton, but he was also at serious risk of being jumped by several rivals during the pit stop sequence. Still, scoring no points at all was a far worse outcome, and you simply can’t see how he will claw back 35 points on Lewis unless there are some more wet-dry weekends and Hamilton fails to finish. Button has been clinging on admirably but grimly in the championship hunt, but Spa may have simply sped up the inevitable.

The attention, however, was rightly focussed on Vettel’s atrociously poor race. His dramas started on lap two when Kubica ran wide at the top of Eau Rouge, and then as Sebastian tried to go by on the Renault’s left at Radillon, the Pole edged him onto the wet grass. Or did he? There are two points to be made here. Firstly, whilst he was busy recovering Robert may not have known Vettel was there. Secondly, and tellingly, on review there was actually enough space for Vettel not to have to fully go onto the grass.

Sebastian simply reacted by driving onto the green stuff. If that was already a misjudgement, then worse was to come. Having examined the replays of his clash with Button, several notable features emerge. Button was hugging the right edge of the track just before the right kink before the Bus Stop braking zone. But after he went through the kink, momentum took him a few metres away from the edge. That may have sucked Vettel into thinking that an inside gap was about to appear.

Hence the German initially darted towards the inside. But whilst it is an explanation, it does not reflect well. It suggests that he second-guesses where his opponents will go rather than waiting the extra moment to observe a situation properly. It is consistent with him running onto the grass at Radillon earlier when, in hindsight, he did not need to. He had assumed Kubica would push him off the track when Robert did not do so. Like in Turkey earlier in the year, Vettel’s split-second decision-making was found wanting.

Having made the initial poor decision to aim inside of Button, presumably Sebastian was dismayed to find Jenson staying on the inside. With a good tow and with the braking zone beckoning, he now had to shift to the outside. But this was not a matter of just choosing the outside line; he had to go from half a car width to the inside right to the outside, a much more drastic lateral movement. He had to momentarily and suddenly apply as much steering lock as he had through Blanchimont!

No wonder he lost the rear end and tank-slapped into the McLaren. And that was not the end of it; there was the subsequent drive-through penalty, followed by his collision with Vitantonio Liuzzi where the blame was to be shared. Vettel understeered as he passed the Force India, but Liuzzi also tried to cut inside rapidly to criss-cross the Red Bull, succeeding only in cutting Vettel’s tyre and damaging his front wing. The puncture put Sebastian a lap down and cost him any realistic hope of points.

The situation only deteriorated in the final shower when Red Bull decided to put full wets on Vettel’s car, even though the track was never wet enough, justifying the decision to the driver over the radio by saying that cars on intermediates were going off (which was largely untrue) and that spotters were of the view that the rain was heavy enough for full wets. Do they trust Sebastian’s own judgment that little? Or is it a sign that Vettel relies on mollycoddling by his team at the cost of making his own decisions?

Overall, a hugely unimpressive day’s work by Vettel, more than enough to earn "Reject of the Race". In the minds of many it confirmed why he cannot win the championship at the moment - he is simply not the complete package, and while he has blistering speed, his starts are average, his decision-making in the heat of battle has proven poor, he lacks mental alertness and calmness, and he tries to make up for it with a Playstation-like aggression born of a sense of arrogant entitlement and youthful indestructibility.

Is that being too harsh? Possibly. I would still not rule him out if in the remaining races he can have a few where he starts from pole and runs away with it, with no curveballs to test his mettle. But if he gets into challenging situations, then that is a different matter. He says he will learn from his Spa errors, but prior to Belgium he was more bemoaning his bad luck, as if he had had nothing to do with making his own ill fortune. If he did not recognise his weaknesses before Spa, why would he better grasp them now?

Aside from Webber, ironically, being the main beneficiary, the other person to gain was Kubica whose stellar weekend was rewarded with another podium finish. The Renault F-duct, introduced for the first time at Spa, must be something special, because with the same engine as the Red Bull the Renault could obviously maintain straight-line speed without having to trim out downforce. Earlier in the season it was at places like Monaco where the Renault would most likely shine, yet Spa is the complete antithesis.

Yet here was Kubica recording his best grid position since Monte Carlo, and he should have equalled his 2nd place finish in Australia but for his over-eager pit-box entry for his change to intermediates, which was the only really notable blot on his copybook. At any rate, while Robert cemented his claims, along with his fellow podium-finishers, to being one of the best three drivers of the season so far, his team-mate Vitaly Petrov continued to frustrate with his infuriating inconsistency.

Hot on the heels of his wonderful weekend in Hungary, the Russian then does something as daft as deliberately riding the wet kerbs in Q1 to see how wet they are, only to crash and be eliminated immediately. But then he goes back into the good books by making a sensational start and pulling off that astonishing outside pass on Nico Rosberg at Les Combes, and despite an earlyish tyre stop dropping him back, he still finished 9th from the back row. It’s just impossible to draw conclusions about him.

Now, at least you can say Petrov is a rookie. How annoyed would Ferrari be at how the weekend turned out despite having two experienced hands behind the wheel? Massa may have finished 4th - having started outside his grid box which amazingly everyone except the officials noticed - but once the Button cork in the bottle was removed, the Brazilian once again had little to offer. That terrific 2008 form when he could match the very best, and which we saw glimpses of in 2009, just isn’t there in 2010.

After looking very good on Friday, things went downhill for Fernando Alonso. He only qualified 10th after gambling on a wet set-up. An understandable roll of the dice, but what weather information was Ferrari relying on that everyone else seemed happy to ignore? Being hit by Rubens Barrichello on lap one was obviously not his fault, and it was a miracle he escaped unscathed, but the decision to put intermediates on was also a gamble that could have led to great dividends but simply failed to pay off.

It epitomised a season in which Ferrari have missed the trick slightly more than they’ve hit the target. From there, having had to switch back to slicks, Alonso was always scrambling to salvage some minor points before he dropped it on the exit of Malmedy in the wet, having done a Petrov. That was yet another error by the Spaniard in a season that has been uncharacteristically littered by too many of them. He could not afford the momentum from Germany and Hungary stopping as it did at Spa.

Coming home 5th in a terrifically solid but largely unheralded run was Sutil in the Force India. The VJM03s were scarily fast in a straight line, and at one stage Adrian blasted past Michael Schumacher’s Mercedes as if the seven-time champ was standing still. This means that whatever secret they unlocked last year when they were such a surprise at Spa and Monza has been carried over into this season’s car. Sutil is a genuine dark horse for Monza and he will be a spanner in the championship battle.

Sutil deservedly moved ahead of Schumacher in the points standings with his equal-best finish of the season, whilst Liuzzi inherited a point for 10th after Jaime Alguersuari was penalised post-race. Although Tonio had a few good combative moments battling with Alonso and Vettel, he was still stuck in the midfield mire despite having a car that was capable of more. He was poised to do well at Monza last year on his comeback to a race drive, and he will need a mighty effort again to firm his chances of keeping his drive.

The works Mercedes team would have been embarrassed by how they were blown away by Sutil, and also stung by Schumacher’s ten-place grid penalty flowing on from Hungary, followed by Rosberg’s gearbox change penalty, followed by both cars missing Q3 after they got in each other’s way in their final Q2 runs. But one never discounts Ross Brawn’s tactical nous, even if his engineering leadership this season has been off-key. Starting both cars on the prime tyre was a stroke of genius.

It meant that both cars could climb up the field whilst others pitted, and make a fairly late stop for tyres. If it turned out to be a dry race and everyone only pits once, they would have lost nothing. But if, as happened, there was a late shower, they would only have to pit once whereas everyone else would have stopped at least twice. The tactic worked, with Rosberg coming home 6th and Schumacher 7th, but not before some entertaining in-fighting between the two.

Schumacher opportunistically took advantage of Petrov’s move on Rosberg to sneak past as well, but late in the race, on the safety car restart in the wet, it was Rosberg returning the favour as he passed both Kamui Kobayashi and his team-mate within half a lap. Not only was this a surprise considering Michael’s traditional Spa brilliance and wet weather prowess, but Nico is not regarded as being strong in slippery conditions. Nothing is really working for Schumi at the moment.

You can’t help but like Kobayashi though, as he came through for more points in 8th. In some respects he is like Petrov; he can make mistakes, including when it matters in qualifying. Here, he threw his Sauber off the track late in Q1 which meant he got eliminated. But Kamui is more aggressive and more consistent than Petrov in race trim. This result, however, was also due to some quick and calm thinking by the Sauber mechanics when Kobayashi came in early, ostensibly for intermediates.

Seeing that the rain was stopping, the team changed the decision and put Kamui onto primes instead that could potentially have seen him through to the end of the race. Yes, that delayed the pit stop and made it look a bit amateur, but given that the field was behind the safety car, there was time to get the choice right. Most other teams would have bolted the inters on anyway and dealt with the consequences, which would have meant an extra stop that would cost more time than the delay that actually occurred.

So kudos to Sauber for some excellent split-second clear-headedness. Not so impressive is the fact that they are the first team to cop an engine change penalty for exceeding their quota of eight motors, whilst Pedro de la Rosa, for all his experience, also crashed out in Q1, made a mistake that let Vettel past at La Source in the race, defended cleverly against Nico Hulkenberg later on, but went off again in the dying stages to surrender a points finish. All in all, that was a disjointed effort by the Spaniard.

Toro Rosso is the only team that isn’t moving forward at the moment. The difficult conditions both in qualifying and in the early and late stages of the race were an opportunity for real driving talent to shine through. Alguersuari had his moments and but for a penalty for cutting the Bus Stop chicane would have scored a point, but while he and Sebastien Buemi could get into the midfield mix instead of observing it from behind, neither made you sit up and take notice either.

For all of Williams’ pace improvement, they haven’t always capitalised and Spa turned out to be another disappointing outing, after both cars qualified in the top ten. Barrichello’s supposed 300th Grand Prix ended most ingloriously when he clouted Alonso on the first lap, although in the damp conditions anyone could have fallen victim to locked brakes regardless of experience, whereas Hulkenberg suffered from throttle control problems that dropped him out of the points.

Whilst Rubens’ milestone is a testimony to his longevity and ability, I have to question the slightly creative accounting involved. I record Spa as only his 297th Grand Prix start, and the Forix website does likewise. That leaves three races in dispute. The first is Belgium 1998, when he was involved in that famous first lap pile-up and did not take the restart. Whether participating in the first start counts as a start is always a matter of dispute amongst F1 anoraks.

The other two ought to be less controversial. In both Spain and France 2002, Rubens suffered mechanical failures which meant he never got going on the warm-up lap, and never actually took the start, so they cannot count as starts. So that means he has only made 297 starts, 298 if you count Spa ’98. So really the 300th Grand Prix celebration was for his 300th Grand Prix weekend, rather than his 300th Grand Prix start, strictly speaking. Except that leaves one further anomaly.

Rubens would probably rather forget about the horrible 1994 Imola weekend, but he did participate in the weekend before his dreadful crash which preceded the even more horrible events which followed. He is recorded as having failed to qualify for that race. So in fact the 300th thing he was celebrating at Spa was the 300th Grand Prix for which he had qualified, whether he started it or not. But that is a mouthful, and I am a pedant. Congratulations to Rubens for a very good career that isn’t finished just yet.

A weekend where there was some craziness could also have been the opportunity the new teams were waiting for, but none of them took advantage. The various grid penalties elevated the Lotuses of Heikki Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli to 13th and 15th on the grid respectively, after Kovalainen had made it into Q2 at the expense of the Saubers and Petrov. But he got bogged off the line before a fairly strong race thereafter, whereas Trulli struggled somewhat and spun late in the race.

Timo Glock also made it into Q2 for Virgin before he got slapped with a penalty for blocking Sakon Yamamoto, of all people, in Q1. It was a messy race for him thereafter, including a nosecone change when he rammed a brake marker, and (like Vettel) a decision to go onto full wets late in the race that backfired. Lucas di Grassi got hit by Trulli in the Q1 melee at Stavelot which forced him out of qualifying, but raced solidly and ended up being his team-mate home.

It was a somewhat eventful outing for Hispania Racing. Bruno Senna started 18th and Yamamoto 19th after the raft of penalties, and Yamamoto leapt up to 13th on the first lap only to slide back to last place, although there were some encouraging signs there for the much-maligned Japanese driver. Senna was always going to be compromised after damaging his front wing at La Source on the first lap, but suspension damage early on brought his afternoon’s work to an early end.