Lewis Hamilton held off Sebastian Vettel's Ferrari to win the Belgian Grand Prix and halve his deficit in the drivers' championship to his German title rival in the process.
The Mercedes-GP driver twice had to rebuff passing moves from Vettel as the Ferrari man was never more than three seconds behind the Briton throughout the 44-lap race at Spa-Francorchamps.
BREAKING: @LewisHamilton wins in Spa - the 58th victory of his career 👏🏻 VET second, RIC takes final podium place #BelgianGP 🇧🇪 #F1 pic.twitter.com/eEDqpa2CSL
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 27, 2017
But Hamilton held his nerve, even when the field was bunched up with 14 laps to go following a safety car period as the two Force Indias of Sergio Perez and Esteban Ocon collided, to win by 2.3 seconds for the fifth time in 2017 and move to seven points of Vettel in the drivers' standings, having started the day 14 behind.
LAP 34/44: VET has a great slipstream and gets wheel-to-wheel with HAM, but the Brit holds on! 🔥#BelgianGP 🇧🇪 #F1 pic.twitter.com/J15rhCofkC
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 27, 2017
Daniel Ricciardo picked up his sixth podium of the season as he took third in his Red Bull Racing car, ahead of Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, who bounced back from receiving a 10-second penalty for ignoring yellow flags, and the second Mercedes of Valtteri Bottas.
LAP 30/44: SAFETY CAR
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 27, 2017
OCO and teammate PER collide 💥#BelgianGP 🇧🇪 #F1 pic.twitter.com/St0SBMfuQ4
There was disappointment, however, for Red Bull's Max Verstappen, who was supported by a huge crowd of Dutch supporters, as a mechanical failure stopped his car on track, giving him his sixth retirement in 12 races.
He had been running in fifth place, ahead of Ricciardo, at the time of the problem hitting.
VER has now had 6 retirements in 12 races this year 👎#BelgianGP 🇧🇪 #F1 pic.twitter.com/6u2ZMlbspZ
— Formula 1 (@F1) August 27, 2017
Nico Hulkenberg's Renault was sixth, with Romain Grosjean in seventh in his Haas ahead of the Williams of Felipe Massa.
Ocon recovered to finish ninth with Carlos Sainz Jr completing the top 10 and the final points scoring position.
The F1 fraternity now head to the Italian Grand Prix at Monza next Sunday, with the race at 4pm UAE time.