David Coulthard pulled away at the front for Williams before suffering a gearbox problem, leaving Hill to lead the race. When Hill made his first pit stop for fresh slick tyres, Schumacher took over at the head of the field. It then started to rain and while Hill went back to the pits for wet weather tyres, Schumacher stayed out on his dry weather slicks. The Williams driver rapidly caught up with the German, but despite lapping six seconds a lap slower, Schumacher was able to keep Hill behind h...
The rain intensified again and the field levelled out when the safety car appeared. Both drivers pitted for wets and returned to the track with Schumacher narrowly ahead of Hill. This appeared to set the two title rivals up for a battle for the lead going into the last ten laps, but Hill then had to pit again to serve a ten-second stop-go penalty for pit lane speeding, a penalty he served with six laps to go, and which put him down to third. Hill recovered to pass Martin Brundle on the Kemmel st...
Schumacher's performance did not impress Hill after his defensive moves forced Hill to either back off or go off the track. Schumacher claimed that he had only blocked Hill at the low-speed corners, but video evidence suggested that Schumacher had blocked Hill on some of the high speed corners, such as the Radillion and Blanchimont . Hill later commented that "We (he and Schumacher) had some pretty hairy moments and I am not satisfied with being driven into; I don't think that was acceptable. Th...