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Christian Horner admits that the Belgian one-two was an unexpected result for RBR, given the team’s history at the track and the challenges it faced over the weekend.

“Power is the dominant factor here, certainly in the first and third sector,” said Horner. “And that was arguably one of our most competitive races of the season, we had very strong race pace. We thought it would perhaps favour some of our opponents more arriving here, but it just demonstrates how difficult it is to predict performance.

“I think for the team it’s been a phenomenal weekend. Yesterday was massively difficult with the conditions. I think as a team it demonstrates how strong we are as a unit to recover from difficult situations, to get the calls right, and the strategies right.

“The car’s had tremendous pace, the drivers have done their bit, and it just shows the solidarity that we have as a unit. It was a massive result for us this weekend, not only to get the pole and the third but a one-two here in the fashion that we did.”

Horner said it was an emotional day for Adrian Newey, because of the concerns about tyre blistering: “He was pretty stressed about the tyre. And he takes that responsibility obviously incredibly seriously. Not of us wanted to be putting the drivers in any way at any risk, and I think the sense of relief…

“It was obviously a very tense race and particularly those first three or four laps on tyres that looked at best secondhand going off the grid. And that was why it was right for our first one-two at this circuit for Adrian to go and get the trophy.”

Horner played down RHR’s role in creating its own tyre problems by being the only team to run a camber level outside Pirelli’s recommendations.

“I think it’s a unique problem. If we’d had proper dry running on Friday we would have tuned out of the car, potentially. On the prime tyre there was no issue at all and the tyre was very clean, you could see particularly on the front running cars, all the cars were affected by blistering. Fernando’s looked pretty bad at one stage, Lewis was having issues, as was Jenson.

“All the frontrunning cars seemed to be having issues, and I think it was a consequence of no real dry running in P1, P2 or P3. The forces that are put into the tyre here are somewhat different to some other circuits.”

Fernando Alonso’s race in Belgium was spoiled by the ongoing problem the team has in getting the best of Pirelli’s prime tyres, which in this case were the mediums.

Alonso was running second in the closing stages, but was unable to hold of Mark Webber and Jenson Button, who caught and passed him. Stefano Domenicali says that the tyre issue will be a key factor in the development of the 2012 car.

“Unfortunately our race was in a way spoiled by the performance of the hard tyres, no doubt, you see very clearly,” said Stefano Domenicali. “A certain situation gave a little advantage to one of our competitors, who was able to gain position.

“For example Jenson started with the hards, he didn’t pay the price for the change of the wing at the pit stop, and having a new set of softs for the end was good for him.

“And also Sebastian who had some struggles with the soft tyres was able to pull off with no price a pit stop that could have let’s say cost him surely more time if that had not happened. In any case we saw Vettel that was performing very, very well, also on the hard tyres. That’s why we were always focussing to see where we were matching. It’s a shame because Fernando did really a great race, always attacking.

“I think that unfortunately we are not happy about the result and the classification because of the things that I told you, and the other thing is for sure we cannot be happy about the fact that when the hard tyre is not working in the proper range, we are not able to match the pace that we should be able to do, so that’s the biggest task that we need to work on for the project of next year.”

Domenicali also insisted that Ferrari didn’t miss a trick when Sebastian Vettel pitted under the safety car and Alonso stayed out.

“It was the right decision, because we changed the tyres later compared with Sebastian. The tyres were newer, and we would fall onto traffic, fall behind Felipe, and the race would have been much more difficult for him because of that situation.

“Then in that part of the race we were still considering the fact that first of all you don’t know how is the length of the safety car. Secondly we were in a situation where we wanted to be in a position to attack. So we have analysed that and we saw that was the right decision.”

Kamui Kobayashi says that he didn’t do anything wrong when he was hit by Lewis Hamilton today – something the McLaren driver himself has now confirmed when he accepted blame for the contact.

“I know I cannot fight because he is much quicker than me,” said Kobayashi. “He overtook me. I don’t know if he was using the rear wing, I was just using the KERS. I think we have very low downforce, that’s why I catch up him. Just at the end of the straight I was staying left, and he was in the middle of the track.

“He came back and we just made contact. If you see the replay later, I was following the white line always, I don’t change at all my line. So I don’t know what I need to do – maybe I have to go to the gravel for him? That’s stupid, you know. He had to stay in the middle, not come back [towards me].

“Definitely I was not trying to overtake him, just staying on my line, doing my race.

“It’s a little bit difficult situation, because he’s fighting for the championship. I am doing a different race!”

Kobayashi himself finished 12^th, blaming the decision not to pit under the safety car for not being able to follow up on a good early part of the race.

Lewis Hamilton has used Twitter to accept blame for his clash with Kamui Kobayashi in the Belgian GP.

Hamilton was passing the Japanese driver when he appeared to misjudge how much room he needed to leave the Sauber. The pair made contact, and Lewis was turned sharp left into the barrier.

After leaving the track he made his thoughts clear on Twitter, saying: “After watching the replay, I realize it was my fault today 100%. I didn’t give Kobayashi enough room though I thought I was past.”

He added: “Apologies to Kamui and to my team. The team deserves better from me. Best wishes, Lewis.”

When he first spoke to the media after the accident he was non committal on what happened, and intriguingly indicated that he didn’t even know that it was Kobayashi who he was passing.

“I hit the wall pretty hard,” he said. “It was a bit unfortunate, the team were in a pretty good position. As far as I was concerned I was ahead of whoever it was I was racing, and I got hit by them, and that was my race over. It’s motor racing. There’s been a lot of races we haven’t finished this year, and that’s just one of them.”

Hamilton said he didn’t have the pace with which to win: “I think we were struggling, and for whatever reason, we were massively slow on the straight, massively slow. I guess that’s really what got us into that position, really.

“Everyone was just pulling away from me on the straights, I was only able to keep up through the infield, so I think we probably had a little too much downforce. Nonetheless we were in a good position still. We may have been able to have at least got a podium.”

Lotus Renault GP says that Robert Kubica underwent his final surgery today, and that it was a success.

Curiously the operation co-incided with a Grand Prix race day, and the team says that on waking up, the Pole asked after the result.

In an encouragingly positive statement, the team said: “Today, Robert underwent one last scheduled operation in Italy, aimed at recovering the full mobility of his right elbow. The surgeons are happy to report that they have been able to complete 100% of their task and did not encounter any complications. They have described the outcome of the operation as “a total success”.

“On waking up, it was immediately clear Robert was in good spirits. Why? Well, as soon as he opened his eyes, he asked for the results of today’s race!

“He will now rest in hospital for a few days before resuming his rehabilitation and training programme.”

The FIA has now apparently told all the teams with cars in the top 10 that they have to start with the tyres on which they qualified.

Earlier this morning Red Bull, McLaren and Toro Rosso had been told that they would be allowed to fit fresh front tyres in the light of blistering in Q3 yesterday, the teams having cited safety grounds.

However other teams were not happy with that decision and new evidence has emerged over the course of the morning. It seems that the FIA believes that the problem was generated by the extreme cambers run by those teams and that there is no inherent safety issue with the Pirellis.

It seems the team also asked if they could change cambers, but that can only be done if they drop out of parc ferme and start from the pit lane.

Christian Horner and Adrian Newey spent much of the morning in discussion with the FIA, while among those known to have registered their opposition are Force India and Williams.

The problem that the teams now face is that they are stuck with those camber settings and every set of tyres will face the same fate…

Tyres have been the major talking point behind the scenes at Spa today in the light of front blistering suffered by several of the teams who ran in Q3 and thus start in the top 10.

The teams concerned – including Red Bull – have tried to persuade the FIA that those tyres are damaged and thus they should be allowed to replace the fronts for the start of the race.

The FIA’s response appears to have changed over the course of the morning, with some team sources suggesting that permission has been granted to three teams and others now suggesting that it won’t happen after all. Three teams I spoke to in the last 30 minutes had different versions of the story; and one knew nothing at all about it.

An RBR source said that Adrian Newey and Christian Horner are in with the FIA right now.

If they are granted permission, in theory teams will not be given fresh tyres, so they will have to take two front tyres from one of their other sets, which in effect means they will have only two complete sets of softs for the race. Teams had expected to use three softs and one medium should the race stay dry, so then it becomes a problem…

The FIA has also just said that Pirelli has released 17 new front tyres, just to confuse the matter.

One team is said in such extreme trouble with front blistering that they may have to contemplate a set-up change, which would mean dropping out of parc ferme and starting from the pitlane. Extreme cambers have contributed to the pace of certain cars through Sector 2.

The FIA is planning to operate two completely independent DRS zones at the Italian GP, this blog can reveal.

In Montreal there were two consecutive zones for the first time – using the same detection point – but in Italy they two zones will be in different parts of the track and will have their own detection points.

Not surprisingly one will be on the main straight, while sources say that the other will be between the second Lesmo and Ascari.

The double zone will be food for thought for the teams as they hone their packages for the race. The low downforce wings run at Monza mean that the DRS gain is smaller, but it is still significant.

Last year Jenson Button showed that there were benefits in running a higher downforce package, and some teams may opt to go in that direction. Higher downforce also protects tyres, which will be a big issue at Monza, where Pirelli expects teams to focus on the medium for the race and do minimal running on the soft.

Two race zones mean that teams are even more likely than normal to optimise their seventh gears for an open DRS.

Pastor Maldonado has been given a five-place grid penalty after his collision with Lewis Hamilton at the end of Q2.

Lewis Hamilton has escaped with a reprimand for his role in the incident.

Both drivers were done for causing a collision. Intriguigly the on-board from the Venezuelan’s camera was not available, but Hamilton’s was, as there is a limit to how many cars can be recorded.

More later…

Bruno Senna has silenced the critics of his promotion to a Lotus Renault race seat by doing a brilliant job to qualify seventh at Spa.

The Brazilian, who is three places ahead of team mate Vitaly Petrov, admits he hadn’t expected to manage that on a dry track.

“Getting into the top 10 in the first qualifying session that I did this year was surprisingly good, to be honest,” said Senna. “I was confident in the wet, not so confident in the dry, but it turned out in the dry we had a good pace as well.

“I told the team on the radio that I wasn’t going to try anything outstanding in Q3.

“It’s been a good start. I wasn’t expecting to get in the top 10 in the first qualifying session. I knew in the wet we had a good performance and could be in the top 10, but the drying conditions were making me a bit more nervous. But it turned out we had a good pace and the car was behaving really well in the dry as well.”

Senna says he’s hopeful of a good performance on Sunday: “I think if the conditions are stable, it’s much easier for me. If conditions are changeable all the time, then it’s going to be very, very difficult. I have to still to learn the dry tyres and high fuel. Or even wet tyres and high fuel. Everybody else has a few more races than I do. So I think step by step, and hopefully tomorrow we’ll get a good result.”