Nico Rosberg wins Belgian Grand Prix

A frenetic 2016 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix saw Mercedes Nico Rosberg take a commanding win from Red Bull’s Daniel Ricciardo, with the second Silver Arrow of Lewis Hamilton a fighting third, having started from the back of the grid.

Force India Nico Hulkenberg again missed out on that elusive maiden podium, finishing fourth ahead of team mate Sergio Perez and the Ferrari Sebastian Vettel, while Fernando Alonso, last on the grid was a superb seventh for McLaren. The Williams of Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were eighth and tenth respectively, split by Kimi Raikkonen who completed the top ten in the second Ferrari.

For Rosberg it looked like a stroll in the Ardennes as he scored his sixth victory of the year, the 20^th of his career. Three cars were damaged; Verstappen lost a chunk of his front wing, Raikkonen sustained a puncture and front wing damage and limped to the pits, and Vettel also had resultant problems with his front wing. The incident compromised all of their races, through events on the sixth lap threw them a lifeline.

It was on the sixth lap that Kevin Magnussen lost the back end of his Renault, which was running in eighth place on team mate Jolyon Palmer tail, as he reached the top of Eau Rouge. Race was restarted 17 minutes later, after teams had had the chance to change to whatever tyres they wanted. World Champion Hamilton now has 232 points to Rosberg 223 and Ricciardo 151.

MotoGP 2016: Grand Prix of Italy

Jorge Lorenzo won a ferocious last lap duel with Marc Marquez to clinch victory at Mugello, where Valentino Rossi face ended in bitter disappointment with an engine failure. Italian hero Rossi had been shadowing his Movistar Yamaha team-mate Lorenzo in second place when his race came to an unceremonious end on lap nine, when he was forced to park up his smoking factory M1.

It was the second engine blow up to hit Yamaha on Sunday after Lorenzo bike suffered a similar fate during morning warm-up. As Lorenzo and Marquez engaged in a game of cat and mouse at the front, Andrea Lannone who was down in 10^th place following the opening lap after blowing his front row start was on the move and came through to take third from his Ducati team-mate Andrea Dovizioso.

Dani Pedrosa also came on strong in the second part of the race and became embroiled in a battle with Lannone, although the Italian rider prevailed to seal the final place on the podium. Lorenzo and Marquez traded passes on a nail biting final lap and it looked as though the Honda rider had managed to make the decisive move to lead out of the final corner onto the main straight, but Lorenzo managed to draft past on the blast to the line to win in dramatic style.

Dovizioso finished fifth on the second of the factory Ducati GP16 machines, with Maverick Vinales sixth on the Ecstar Suzuki. Spaniard Vinales also blew his start and had to fight his way through from 11^th place on the GSX-RR. It was Rossi second DNF of the season after he crashed out in Texas and he is now 37 points behind Lorenzo after the first six rounds.