Belgian GP: Jenson Button enjoys dominant victory

McLaren driver Jenson Button admitted to "enjoying the scenery" during his dominant victory at the Belgian Grand Prix.

The 32-year-old sprinted clear of the field following a collision caused by Lotus's Romain Grosjean that took out McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, championship leader Fernando Alonso and Sauber's Sergio Perez at the start.

"It was very nice driving around enjoying the scenery," Button said. "It is never as easy as it looks, though, and it is unusual to do a one-stop.

"We got to lap 12 and the balance was getting better. It was good but you never really know."

Reigning champion Sebastian Vettel finished a distant second, and was happy to take home a decent haul of points after "a difficult day" in qualifying on Saturday.

He said: "Qualifying was not the way we wanted it to be. Why? Don't ask me. The car seemed to be back to normal performance today.

"The start was poor and I lost a lot of positions because people crashed into each other. It was tough to come back but the car worked, we had pace and it was fun to overtake."

Vettel and team-mate Mark Webber went wheel-to-wheel at the Bus Stop chicane as they fought for position, and the Australian had no complaints about his fellow Red Bull driver's move.

He said: "Me and Sebastian had a fight, that was fine. After Eau Rouge it was not possible to fight in a straight line.

"That made it tough, then you start to roll the dice. After the start, we did not make the most out of the situation."

Despite finishing in the final podium position, Lotus's Kimi Raikkonen cut a frustrated figure after struggling for top speed on Spa-Francorchamp's lengthy straights.

He said: "It is nice to be back here at Spa, but it was not very nice racing today for us. It was not the easiest day for me as the car was not exactly to our liking.

"I was fighting to get the best out of it and we managed to get some key points, so that was the main thing. It was a difficult one and next week we will try to be better."

Sauber duo Perez and Kamui Kobayashi were badly affected by Grosjean's move - labelled "stupid" by three-time world champion Niki Lauda - and the Japanese driver did not try to hide his disappointment after he was robbed of the chance to convert his best ever qualifying performance into points.

He said: "This is a terrible race result after we had been doing so well in qualifying. There was nothing I could do when a car came flying into mine after the start.

"I had to pit once for some repairs and then again after seven laps because of a slow puncture. During the race I didn't really know how bad the damage to the car was, but I could see a tyre print on the cockpit all the time."

His team-mate Perez added: "We lost a very good opportunity today. We had such a great opportunity that we missed because of the mistake of a driver."

The incident-packed opening also saw Williams's Pastor Maldonaldo jump the start, and the Venezuelan stated he had no-one to blame but himself for his error.

He said: "I made a slight mistake at the start because the clutch slipped out of my hands before the red light switched off. I am disappointed because we could have scored some good points here, but it is not long until the next race so we are looking forward now."

Spa saw Mercedes veteran Michael Schumacher reach another landstone in his career as he recorded his 300th race start.

He said: "I enjoyed my 300th grand prix, it is beautiful to fight for the top end positions and it is sad when you cannot take it home.

"We tried to gamble and try our luck with our race strategy, it looked reasonable from the start as we did reasonable lap times in my first stint. I needed to push my tyres against Ricciardo and that decided we had to come in again."