Grosjean in the sin bin of the stars

After Romain Grosjean collided with Lewis Hamilton to trigger a dramatic multi-car crash at the beginning of Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, he became the first driver to receive a race ban for causing an accident since Mika Hakkinen in the 1994 German GP.

Three drivers received bans that season: Hakkinen, Eddie Irvine (who was already on a suspended sentence carried over from 1993 when he crashed with Jos Verstappen in Brazil) and Michael Schumacher (who ignored a black flag at the British GP). Irvine was banned for one race (increased to three once he lost an appeal against the suspension) and Schumacher for two.

It's perhaps also worth noting that Spa winner Jenson Button was forced to sit on the sidelines during the 2005 Monaco and Spanish Grands Prix after his BAR team was banned for a technical infringement (a hidden secondary fuel tank).

Sunday's drama means that Grosjean has still to complete a racing lap in an F1 car at Spa, having started two Belgian Grands Prix. With his second 'zero-lap' race of the season, and having completed just one lap in Australia and three in Malaysia, Grosjean is last in the table for kilometres completed this season - almost 300 fewer than Michael Schumacher (2674 to 2375). That's nearly an entire race distance!

In his short career, Grosjean has collided with nine different drivers - and that's more than a third of the current field:

- Button at Spa, 2009;

- Pastor Maldonado in Australia, 2012;

- Michael Schumacher in Malaysia and Monaco, 2012;

- Sergio Perez and Bruno Senna in Spain, 2012;

- Fernando Alonso in Monaco, 2012;

- Paul di Resta at Silverstone, 2012;

- Felipe Massa and Senna in Germany, 2012;

- Lewis Hamilton, Alonso and Perez in Belgium, 2012

Alonso's Belgian curse

Fernando Alonso was caught up in the massive accident at the start of the grand prix © XPB

Fernando Alonso has never won an F1 race at Spa, and that trend obviously continued following the first-lap shunt. But it also brought to an end his 23-race points streak, falling just one event short of Michael Schumacher's all-time record.

Looking for further signs that Spa is not a lucky place for Alonso, there is the fact that in 50 races with Ferrari he has only retired four times: after an engine failure in Malaysia (2010), a collision with Button in Canada (2011) and twice at Spa in race accidents (2010 and this year).

Also since joining Ferrari, there are only three circuits where he's failed to stand on the podium. They are Melbourne (where he's scored 34 points for the team), Shanghai (20) and Spa (12).

Before Spa, Alonso had completed all the scheduled race laps this season and was the only driver to have scored points at every race.

Race

Jenson Button's outstanding performance at Spa netted him his 14th career win. This puts him alongside former multiple world champions Graham Hill, Jack Brabham and Emerson Fittipaldi at 17th in the all-time list.

Button's was the first lights-to-flag victory since last year's Indian GP, won by Sebastian Vettel. That's made all the more impressive when you consider that until now, Jenson had only led one lap out of the last 10 Belgian GPs - during the pitstop phase last year.

The Brit has only managed to lead every lap of a race once before, when he kicked off his championship year in 2009 with a dominant performance in the Australian GP.

Sunday's race produced the 222nd win for a British driver in F1. Britain leads the national standings ahead of Germany, which boasts 126 victories.

Also interesting is that not since Monaco 2009 had Jenson won from pole. Between then and Sunday he scored seven victories from further back on the grid.

Button's win was important for McLaren, which equalled Ferrari's tally of 12 victories at Spa. It was also the team's first back-to-back wins since the German and Hungarian GPs last year.

• Spa marked the 50th straight race with a McLaren in the points and the 40th consecutive grand prix with a Ferrari in the points.

• Sebastian Vettel secured his 40th podium finish last weekend, and it was the first time he stood on the rostrum having started from a double-digit grid spot (10th). Vettel's second place also gave Red Bull its 50th podium.

• Vettel's result ended a two-race barren spell where his team failed to get either driver on the podium, and since the start of 2009 there have never been three straight races without a Red Bull man spraying champagne.

Giancarlo Fisichella scored Force India's best result so far at Spa © LAT

• Kimi Raikkonen took his 68th podium finish with third place. That puts him fifth in the all-time list alongside Rubens Barrichello. Spa was also the first time that he had stood alongside Button and Vettel.

• Bruno Senna recorded the fastest race lap for the first time in his career. He is the ninth driver this year to achieve this feat. It was the first for Williams since the 2009 Australian GP (Nico Rosberg). Six teams have recorded fastest laps in 2012 (Lotus, Red Bull, Sauber, Mercedes, McLaren and Williams); Ferrari, which is fourth in the constructors' standings, has yet to post one.

• Nico Hulkenberg recorded a career-best result with fourth place at Spa. It's only the third time in history that a Force India has finished in the top four. Giancarlo Fisichella finished second, also at Spa, in 2009 and then Adrian Sutil took fourth place a week later in Italy.

• Jean-Eric Vergne and Daniel Ricciardo equalled their best career finishes with eighth and ninth places, where they also were placed in Malaysia and Australia respectively. As often happens (eight times out of 12 this year), the two Toro Rossos finished in formation. They scored a double-points finish, which hadn't been recorded by the Italian squad since last year's Korean GP.

Qualifying

• Jenson Button captured the eighth pole position of his career at Spa, which is the same number as Riccardo Patrese and 1964 world champion John Surtees. He had to wait 60 races between poles, with his last coming at Monaco in 2009. It was a nice way to celebrate his 50th race with McLaren, as this was his first pole for the team.

• Kamui Kobayashi secured his best career start, getting on the front row for the first time and improving on his third spot in China. It's only the second time a Japanese driver has started on the front row - Takuma Sato managed it for BAR in the 2004 European GP.

Kamui Kobayashi started a brilliant second for Sauber at Spa © LAT

• Sauber notched up a little bit of history on Saturday. Kobayashi's was the team's third front-row spot, after two second places in Austria 1998 and France 1999 for Jean Alesi. With Sergio Perez fourth, it was the best overall qualifying result for the team.

• Thanks to Maldonado's grid penalty, Kimi Raikkonen obtained his best grid spot since his comeback with third.

• Another driver who was thankful to the Venezuelan was Sergio Perez, fourth spot being his career's best.

• Lewis Hamilton started from his second-worst grid spot at Spa: seventh (in 2009 he was 12th), and was beaten again by a team-mate here for the first time since his maiden season, when he lost out to Fernando Alonso.

• For the second time this year, Sebastian Vettel dropped out in Q2. It's only the fourth time since the start of the 2009 season this has happened. The Red Bull driver has fared worse at Spa only in his Toro Rosso years (16th and 10th in 2007 and 2008).

• A gearbox change meant that Mark Webber had to start outside the top 10 (12th) in back-to-back races for the first time since the final four rounds of the 2008 season. At Spa, Webber has only started from a lower spot when driving for Minardi (19th).

• Michael Schumacher might have scored his first grand prix victory here, but since his comeback he's not been able to get in the top 10 on the grid. Before his retirement he missed out only in 1995, when he was 16th but still won the race.