Michael Schumacher led today’s Belgian Grand Prix from start to finish and in doing so broke yet another record by winning his 10th race of the season. To add icing to the cake it was also the 50th straight podium finish for Ferrari.

Complete GP of Belgium results.

His teammate Rubens Barrichello was second and it appears that Schumacher’s record setting is going to take precedence over Barrichello’s fight for second position in the World Championship as the team has ruled out asking Schumacher to move aside to let Barrichello gain a position. They have conceded that the teammates will only have to race until the second pit stop and the driver in the lead at that point will be the winner unless something untoward happens.

Both of the Ferraris completely outclassed the rest of the field with Schumacher well ahead of Barrichello who was himself around 30 seconds in front of Juan Pablo Montoya’s third placed Williams.

The McLarens of David Coulthard and Kimi Raikkonen were shadowing Montoya in fourth and fifth positions until Raikkonen retired with mechanical problems.

Ralf Schumacher had qualified well but a poor start and a spin cost him both time and positions. He finally finished fifth after inheriting several places towards the end of the race.

Eddie Irvine collected sixth place and another point for Jaguar when several cars in front of him succumbed to engine failures.

Mika Salo finished in seventh place for Toyota with Jacques Villeneuve’s BAR behind him in eighth.

Allan McNish (Toyota), Nick Heidfeld (Sauber) and Takuma Sato (Jordan) were the last cars still running at the flag and they were all a lap behind the leaders.

With 10 laps to go a sudden rush of solo accidents and engine failures took out six drivers in as many laps and signalled a caution to the remaining teams, many of whom — most notably Ferrari — eased off a little at that point.