For a long time it had looked as if Hamilton had tossed away his chances of victory on the daunting Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

The race started with the track wet in the immediate vicinity of the pits but dry on the majority of the lap.

Hamilton, along with every other driver in the race other than Renault's Nelson Piquet Jr, chose dry tyres.

But the conditions caught him out at the start of lap two, and he spun turning into the La Source hairpin.

The mistake put Raikkonen right behind him and the Ferrari driver simply drove past on the straight after the Eau Rouge esses.

It was a critical error from Hamilton, who was fuelled to make his first pit stop a lap earlier than Raikkonen.

That meant his main hope of holding off the Ferrari driver was to build a lead big enough before his stop on lap 10 that Raikkonen could not close it on his extra lap.

Instead, although Hamilton shadowed Raikkonen to the first stops, he could not pass him.

Hamilton's hopes were further dented when he came out from his pit stop right behind his slower team-mate Heikki Kovalainen, who was battling for position with BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica.

By the time he had cleared Kovalainen and Kubica five laps later, Raikkonen was five seconds ahead, a lead he was able to maintain comfortably to the second round of stops.

The two men both made their final stops on lap 25 and on the harder tyre Hamilton was able to close on the Ferrari.

The 23-year-old shaved about half a second a lap out of Raikkonen's lead and was within two seconds of the Ferrari by lap 31.

He was unable to make much more of an impression until the predicted late shower of rain arrived with about five laps to go.

Within minutes, the back of the circuit was soaking, while it remained dry in the vicinity of the pits - not an unusual situation at a track renowned for its capricious weather.

Hamilton closed right up to Raikkonen on lap 42 and although he thought better of a move at the Bus Stop chicane at the end of the lap, he passed him going into the La Source hairpin at the opposite end of the pit straight.

But that was not the end of the battle.

When the two men reached the wet part of the track halfway around the lap, Hamilton slid off, handing the lead back to Raikkonen, who almost immediately lost it again by sliding off himself.

The Finn then lost control going through the fast Blanchimont corner, and speared into the wall.

Provisional result at Belgian Grand Prix:

1. Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes one hour 22 minutes 44.933 seconds
2. Felipe Massa (Brz) Ferrari 14.461 seconds behind
3. Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber +23.844
4. Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault +28.939
5. Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Toro Rosso-Ferrari +29.037
6. Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber +29.498
7. Sebastien Bourdais (Fra) Toro Rosso-Ferrari +31.196
8. Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota +56.506
9. Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault +57.237
10. Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes one lap behind
11. David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault one lap
12. Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota one lap
13. Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India-Ferrari one lap
14. Kazuki Nakajima (Jpn) Williams-Toyota one lap
15. Jenson Button (GB) Honda one lap
16. Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota one lap
17. Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India-Ferrari one lap
18R Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari two laps
R Rubens Barrichello (Brz) Honda 19 laps completed
R Nelson Piquet (Brz) Renault 31 laps

Key: R = retired