When you're hot, you're hot. Mika Hakkinen's earlier mean season has over the last four races become a dream season and yesterday the Finn's run of results continued with a superb win at the Belgian Grand Prix, a victory sealed with a stunning overtaking- manoeuvre on chief-rival Michael Schumacher to claim the lead just four laps from home.

The Finn had been gifted the perfect start when the race begun under the safety car because of earlier torrential rain, but he threw away the present of a free run at the first corner, La Source, as early as lap 13 when he spun in damp conditions after changing from wet to dry-weather tyres and handed the lead to Schumacher. It looked like the German, who began to pull away, would waltz to a championship lead-stealing victory. However, Hakkinen has been made of stern stuff in recent races and over the course of the next 29 laps reeled in the Ferrari.

Hakkinen first attempted to overtake the German on lap 40 but Schumacher blocked the Finn by shifting his Ferrari sideways, forcing Hakkinen to brake hard and drift out almost on to the grass. One lap later and the pair came up behind back-marker Ricardo Zonta in the BAR on the Kemmel straight heading towards Les Combes. As Schumacher tore past the Brazilian on the outside, Hakkinen dived inside on the more difficult wet side of the track controlling his car superbly to simultaneously outpace the Ferrari.

"It was quite a different one," Hakkinen said, before taking a wry dig at Schumacher's blocking manoeuvre "A situation like that is quite unusual, to overtake someone in a straight line with the back marker between you but I knew that following Michael and trying to overtake him normally wasn't going to work because he wouldn't give me the room! So I took a different route and went completely inside him and overtook the back marker and Michael. It was just a great move."

Schumacher admitted Hakkinen's move had caught him completely by surprise. "To be honest I was delighted to see the back marker because my straight-line speed was a lot less than Mika's and I thought if I could get into the slipstream of the back marker and Mika couldn't it would make it better for me. Usually the tracks are so narrow you can only fit two cars beside each other but Mika did an outstanding manoeuvre to pass on the inside. I just didn't expect it." The end for Jarno Trulli came as early as lap five, however, as Jordan's run of abysmal luck continued. Starting from second, the Italian had been ideally placed to earn his first major points of the year but after drifting wide at La Source on lap five, the Italian was passed by Schumacher on the inside. Seeing the door apparently left open, the pursuing Jenson Button attempted to do likewise. Trulli, though, had already closed the door and the two clashed. Button sailed on to an eventual fifth but Trulli was stranded, his car stopped and his race over.

"Once again I had no luck," lamented Trulli, who tomorrow journeys to Northern Ireland for the Belfast City Millennium Motor Sport Festival. "I think Jenson was a bit too aggressive too soon. He should have waited a couple of laps as he would probably would have got past me since I was struggling with my rear tyres and a heavy fuel load."

His Jordan team-mate, Heinz-Harald Frentzen had an incident-free race to score a single point in sixth place. "I had a good fight with David Coulthard and Rubens Barrichello but otherwise I simply drove my race," he said.

Coulthard left the circuit fuming with his own team's miscalculations that brought the Scot in late for his change from his initial wet tyres to dry-weather rubber, a mistake that left him battling to make his way to an eventual fourth behind Ralf Schumacher in the second Williams.

"I have to be careful about what I say about people who have helped me to three grands prix wins this year but I think there was room to bring both me and Mika in on the same lap," he said. "I was struggling on the wets and Mika (with dry tyres) was five seconds quicker in the second sector so I think the gap was there."

Hakkinen, with 74 points, now stretches his championship lead to six over Schumacher, with Coulthard six points further back on 62 points.

McLaren also extend their lead in the constructors' championship, Ferrari suffering both through Schumacher's second place and Rubens Barrichello's retirement on lap 33.