1996 Belgian Grand Prix

The start of the race saw the two Saubers of Heinz-Harald Frentzen and Johnny Herbert eliminated immediately when they collided at the La Source hairpin, following an incident that also involved Olivier Panis' Ligier and Rubens Barrichello's Jordan. Panis also retired on the spot; Barrichello was able to continue, pitting to repair his suspension, although it eventually failed altogether on lap 30. On lap 10, Jos Verstappen pitted with a sticking throttle. The Footwork Arrows pit crew found no damage and sent Verstappen back out, only for the Dutchman to crash almost immediately. Team boss Tom Walkinshaw confirmed after the race that the throttle problem had not recurred, and that the crash was caused by a faulty wheel.

The incident brought out the safety car for seven laps, during which time all the drivers besides the McLarens of Mika Häkkinen and David Coulthard (both running a one-stop strategy) made pit stops. Jacques Villeneuve, leading the race when the safety car came out, missed his pit stop on lap 13. As a result, he lost the lead to Michael Schumacher, who eventually won the race by 5.6 seconds from Villeneuve. The Canadian driver later explained that he had misunderstood the radio instruction to come in, due to the confusion brought about by the deployment of the safety car. As a further consequence of Villeneuve's error, teammate Damon Hill was instructed to pit by the Williams engineers, only to then be told to stay out just as he was heading into the pit lane. Hill was driving the spare Williams following a misfire in the Sunday morning warm-up session. By the time he finally got to make his pit stop, he had fallen to 13th, but he recovered to finish fifth.

Running in fourth place at half distance, Gerhard Berger spun off in his Benetton while trying to pass Eddie Irvine's Ferrari, an error which dropped him to 12th. After setting a string of fastest laps he recovered to sixth by the end of the race, thanks in part to Irvine's retirement with gearbox problems. Berger's Benetton teammate Jean Alesi finished fourth after Coulthard had spun off into retirement and crashed on lap 38.

Race classification

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Michael Schumacher	Ferrari	44	1:28:15.125	3	10
2	6	Jacques Villeneuve	Williams-Renault	44	+ 5.602	1	6
3	7	Mika Häkkinen	McLaren-Mercedes	44	+ 15.710	6	4
4	3	Jean Alesi	Benetton-Renault	44	+ 19.125	7	3
5	5	Damon Hill	Williams-Renault	44	+ 29.179	2	2
6	4	Gerhard Berger	Benetton-Renault	44	+ 29.896	5	1
7	19	Mika Salo	Tyrrell-Yamaha	44	+ 1:00.754	13
8	18	Ukyo Katayama	Tyrrell-Yamaha	44	+ 1:40.227	17
9	16	Ricardo Rosset	Footwork-Hart	43	+ 1 Lap	18
10	20	Pedro Lamy	Minardi-Ford	43	+ 1 Lap	19
Ret	8	David Coulthard	McLaren-Mercedes	37	Spun Off	4
Ret	12	Martin Brundle	Jordan-Peugeot	34	Engine	8
Ret	2	Eddie Irvine	Ferrari	29	Gearbox	9
Ret	11	Rubens Barrichello	Jordan-Peugeot	29	Suspension	10
Ret	10	Pedro Diniz	Ligier-Mugen-Honda	22	Electrical	15
Ret	17	Jos Verstappen	Footwork-Hart	11	Accident	16
Ret	15	Heinz-Harald Frentzen	Sauber-Ford	0	Collision	11
Ret	14	Johnny Herbert	Sauber-Ford	0	Collision	12
Ret	9	Olivier Panis	Ligier-Mugen-Honda	0	Collision	14
Source:[3]

• Bold text indicates the World Champions.

Drivers' Championship standings Pos Driver Points 1 Damon Hill 81 2 Jacques Villeneuve 68 3 Michael Schumacher 39 4 Jean Alesi 38 5 Mika Häkkinen 23 Source: [4]

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Williams-Renault 149 2 Benetton-Renault 55 3 Ferrari 48 4 McLaren-Mercedes 41 5 Jordan-Peugeot 15 Source: [4]

• Note: Only the top five positions are included for both sets of standings.