Early drama at Spa

Romain Grosjean, pictured, clipped Lewis Hamilton's McLaren at the start of the Belgian Grand Prix
2 September 2012

A pile-up at the first corner took out four cars as the Belgian Grand Prix got off to a dramatic start.

The safety car was immediately deployed following the multiple collision at the La Source hairpin.

From sixth on the grid Williams' Pastor Maldonado made a jump start, but behind the Venezuelan it was the Lotus of Romain Grosjean who clipped Lewis Hamilton in his McLaren.

The rear-right tyre of Grosjean's car caught the front-left of the McLaren, sending the Briton into a spin.

The chain reaction that followed saw Grosjean run into the back of Sauber's Sergio Perez, and as Hamilton followed through, the Ferrari of championship leader Fernando Alonso was also affected.

On-board replays showed the Lotus flying over the front of the Ferrari, but fortunately no drivers were injured.

Other casualties included Sauber's Kamui Kobayashi, forcing him into the pits and dropping him to last of the 20 remaining cars after starting from second on the grid.

Maldonado was also forced to pit, dropping him to 17th, but his race was run on lap five after another incident involving the 27-year-old and after the first four laps were run under the safety car.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Sign up you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy notice .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in