The race was won by Sebastian Vettel in a Red Bull-Renault in a time of 1:23:42, registering an average speed of 220.80 km/h, thus extending his championship lead to 46 points.

As the track continued drying, Nico Rosberg, Mark Webber, and Sebastian Vettel all hit the front briefly.

After the midpoint, most drivers pitted for a new set of intermediate tyres while Giedo van der Garde took a gamble to switch onto the slicks.

But Fernando Alonso managed to set the fastest time at the last moment, and his team-mate Felipe Massa also made it into the next session.

In fact, three of the four drivers from Caterham and Marussia squeezed into Q2, the only one that failed to do so was Charles Pic, who started the race from the last place on the grid.

Eliminated in Q2 were Sauber's Nico Hülkenberg, Force India's Adrian Sutil, McLaren's Sergio Pérez, Caterham's Giedo van der Garde who achieved the team's best qualifying result ever, and both the Marussias.

Sebastian Vettel had a great run up Eau Rouge and overtook pole-sitter Lewis Hamilton down Kemmel Straight on the first lap and quickly took a commanding lead over the Mercedes duo.

Kimi Räikkönen was also working his way up the field, but excessive brake dust was coming out of Finn's left front wheel at an early stage in the race.

It was later discovered that a loose visor tear-off got stuck inside the left front brake duct, causing the disc to overheat.

As the four cars were approaching the final chicane, the young Mexican successfully made his move on both Adrian Sutil and Maldonado.

As a result, the Venezuelan had to pit for a new front wing and received a ten seconds stop-and-go penalty while di Resta retired his car on the spot.