Some high octane drama and some determined and disciplined racing saw Force India clinch a podium place at Spa today. Giancarlo Fisichella finished the Belgian Grand Prix in a amazing second position.

Fisichella started strongly, having capitalizing on a mistake by Raikkonen and succeeded in building up a significant lead. Unfortunately a huge incident involving contact between multiple cars caused the opening laps to be raced under a safety car. This closed the gap between Fisichella and he was robbed of the race lead by the KERS on the Ferrari. The six second, 61 kW boost provided by system the was enough for Kimi Raikkonen to muscle the Ferrari into P1. Fisichella put up a brave fight, racing wheel to wheel for the rest of the race. Unfortunately, he was unable to find a way past Kimi. To his credit though, he breathed down Ferrari's neck all the way and did not allow them to pull away and open a gap.

The fairness in racing non-KERS enabled cars against KERS fitter cars is questionable. The huge boost provided by it is in no way offset by the added weight of the system. But unfortunately, like a lot of other things in Formula One, we just have to live with it. The playing field should be level next year though, with KERS becoming mandatory on all cars for the 2010 Formula One season.

It was really humorous to see, the team with arguably the lowest budget in formula one, go wheel to wheel with the team with arguably the highest budget. Racing for their best result yet, force India must have been under tremendous pressure. However they held their nerve and executed clean text-book pit-stops.

Adding to the high drama along the way, Renault had yet another tire failure, courtesy an early collision with Adrian Sutil. (Can't keep Force India out of the headlines today!) Ruberns Barichello provided a good illustration of car aerodynamics with thick smoke trailing out of his engine and tracing a slipstream for the last three laps. He just about made it home with his engine catching fire in the out-lap.

After 44 intense laps in one of the greatest formula one circuits, the Circuit De Spa-Francorchamps, Kimi Raikkonen classified first, closely followed by Force India's Giancarlo Fisichella and Sebastian Vettel. This is Force India's first ever podium finish. With this finish, they have finally opened their points tally, after having come so agonizingly close at Monaco last year. Teammate Sutil finished 11th.

I am delighted with this result, for it announces the arrival of Indian Motor-sport, at-least in part on the world stage. Only if it were not for the unfair KERS advantage, we could have tentatively seen a Force India victory.

Links:

• Classification: http://bit.ly/3RDlaR
• Force India Announcement: http://bit.ly/10QG1p