F1: Top 5 Races at Spa-Francorchamps

Hamilton wins a dominant race, 2017

Hamilton bounced back from his Hungarian GP fiasco to win at Spa, ahead of Vettel

As the Formula 1 entourage headed for the mid-season break in 2017, the odds of a championship win rested in favour of Ferrari and Sebastian Vettel.

Following a strong and dominant performance at the Hungaroring with Vettel and Raikkonen garnering an ecstatic Ferrari 1-2, the feeling of heading into holidays spelt great charm for Vettel. Hamilton, who last won at Hungary in 2016, was denied what could've been a win had it not been for Ferrari's imposing speed at the former Iron Curtain.

After all, what can be a better confidence-booster other than heading in the mid-season halt seeing your name on top of the rankings? Vettel was a happy man and understandably so.

Hamilton, on the other hand, was under pressure in order to snatch the advantage from his archrival but he bounced back superbly at the 2017 Belgian Grand Prix.

Right after the resumption of the 2017 season, Hamilton stormed to a dogged and clinical triumph at Spa-Francorchamps, winning the race by a margin of six-tenths of a second ahead of Ferrari's Vettel.

Back then, it was said that few of Hamilton's (then) 58 race victories were as hard-boiled as the triumph at Belgium. Snatching pole on a cloudy Saturday, the Briton, who also won the 2017 season eventually went on to grab a win in his 200th Formula One race.

Could it get any better for Lewis?

But all throughout the competition, while there were interesting battles further down the grid between the two Finns- Bottas and Raikkonen- and the two Force India drivers, Ocon and Peres, Hamilton was successful in chipping away right at the start, maintaining the lead from the onset of Lap 1.

By the time he hit Turn 1, Hamilton, the pole-sitter, kept himself in the hunt, despite an attacking Sebastian Vettel, beginning from second on the grid.

But by the time the race went into Lap 2, Vettel was beginning to look stronger, getting a great slipstream to pass Hamilton. Then, at Les Combes the two drivers, amongst the greats in the sport, went literally wheel-to-wheel but Hamilton kept Vettel at bay.

There was no dearth of drama in the race as Raikkonen was handed a 10-second stop go for failing to slow down under a double yellow flag and the two Force Indias collided, eventually emerging unscathed from a sudden collision.

By Lap 17, Hamilton set a belter of a lap at 1:49:1 and seemed the fastest man on the grid. He'd maintain the lead for more laps and by the time the race exceeded the halfway stage, it seemed no one had an answer to curb Hamilton, the race-leader in Lap 29. At around this time, the two Force Indias collided with each other again prompting the deployment of the Virtual Safety Car.

Racing resumed on Lap 33 as Hamilton led Vettel, the two clear fighters for the top contention at the front. Although Vettel had an outside chance to pass the Mercedes driver at the chicane on Lap 33, Hamilton kept fighting at the very front.

1 lap later, on Lap 34, Vettel, now barely half a second behind Hamilton dived into the inside in an attempt to pass Hamilton only to see the Briton fightback and resist the overtake. If this moment was a master-class in defensive driving, then Raikkonen's pass over Ricciardo and Bottas during the same lap was epic.

Eventually, Hamilton would keep his tail in the front of Ferrari's Vettel as Mercedes reigned supreme on an action-packed weekend.