Daniel Ricciardo enhanced his future champion potential by taking his third win in six races on a day where his victory will be overshadowed by the ongoing battle that is Mercedes. The biggest talking point of the race was the incident between the two Silver Arrows drivers on lap 2. Lewis Hamilton had the lead going into Les Combes until team mate and title rival Nico Rosberg collided with him.

Had Rosberg backed off like he should have, there would have been no collision, as Hamilton had the racing line. Instead he clipped Hamilton's left rear tyre and ended up puncturing it. This was an accident he never recovered from, and languished in 16th all race until retiring in the latter stages of the afternoon. Rosberg went on to finish 2nd behind Ricciardo and was booed on the podium. Team boss Toto Wolff expressed his anger at the situation and particularly Rosberg, "This is an absolutely unacceptable race for us. For our drivers to crash into each other...unbelievable,” 

Elsewhere there were fantastic battles between some drivers, especially in the final laps, where there was an exciting four car battle to the finish. Sebastian Vettel Fernando Alonso, and the two McLaren cars of Jenson Button and Kevin Magnussen all engaged in a wheel to wheel fight. Alonso appeared to lose out after he collided with Vettel at La Source, losing most of his front wing in the process, and finishing 8th. Vettel led the McLaren drivers home, Magnussen finished sixth with his veteran team mate 7th.

The two Finns of Formula One, Williams' Valterri Bottas and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, had a tussle with Williams' straight line speed coming to the fore. He managed to get past Raikkonen, who's known as a master of Spa due to his many wins here in the past. Raikkonen has said that Ferrari's car is improving, but is it a case of too little too late for the Scuderia, as we reach the latter stages of the season. 

Caterham's step in for the weekend, Triple Le Mans winner Andre Lotterer, had a dismal race to forget as his car stopped at the pit entry in the early laps to put an abrupt end to his first ever Grand Prix. He was joined on the retirements list by Pastor Maldonado, Romain Grosjean, Jules Bianchi and Lewis Hamilton, who now sits 29 points behind his German team mate.

Ricciardo now looks like he could gatecrash the title party as he sits 64 points behind Rosberg, and with double points available in the season ender at Abu Dhabi, he can't be ruled out. The ever smiling Australian is slowly becoming a fan favourite and no one would complain should he have a late surge n form and take the title. It may not be spoken about as much as the Mercedes debacle, but Ricciardo took a stunning victory and his second in succession, book-ending the summer break with wins. 

All the post race discussions will be regarding the Mercedes duo, with the Mercedes hierarchy arranging a meeting to talk about today's race. This sort of acident has been long coming. It's been a situation threatening to boil over for some time. This season's title battle is very reminiscent of Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost in the late 1980's. 

Even though the race has ended, this weekend will be discussed long into the week, perhaps even up to and during the next race at Monza.

Race order

1) Ricciardo, 2) Rosberg, 3) Bottas, 4) Raikkonen, 5) Vettel, 6) Magnussen, 7) Button, 8) Alonso, 9) Perez, 10) Kvyat, 11) Hulkenberg, 12) Vergne, 13) Massa, 14) Sutil, 15) Gutierrez, 16) Chilton, 17) Ericsson, RET) Hamilton, RET) Bianchi, RET) Grosjean, RET) Lotterer, RET) Maldonado