Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel’s epic battle makes Monza unmissable | Giles Richards

Lewis Hamilton heads to Monza knowing the track should favour Mercedes.Photograph: Eric Alonso/Action Plus via Getty Images

Lewis Hamilton is a driver who wears his heart on his race suit but after victory at Spa his usual exhilaration was tempered by a somewhat cold detachment. In the Ardennes there was a steely acknowledgement that he had won only a minor battle in what promises to be a long fight.

Hamilton knows how tough this season’s title fight is going to be. He does so due to the competitiveness Ferrari showed in Belgium on what was expected to be a Mercedes track and because of how title rival Sebastian Vettel extracted everything from his car. For Hamilton it was a cause for caution but for the rest of us it was exactly the start the second half of the season needed and makes this weekend’s meeting at Monza unmissable.

Hamilton won at Spa, having held off two determined efforts from Vettel to pass, the second featuring a glorious piece of braking on cold, soft tyres to deny the German, whose lead in the championship was halved to seven points.

His pleasure was tempered by the knowledge of how hard he had had to push to hold off his competitor. “People said, ‘You don’t look happy’. I’m happy, but it’s not over,” he said. “I know the difficulties that may be ahead.” Spa, a high-speed, fast-flowing circuit like Silverstone, where Mercedes had dominated, was expected to fall easily to the silver arrows.

Vettel’s performance rewrote that script. He was rarely more than 1.5seconds behind Hamilton and had he had track position – clean air and leading from pole – Hamilton doubted he would have been able to make a pass. Ferrari then have developed their car strongly since Silverstone, where Vettel admitted they were nearly a second off the pace.

The British Grand Prix however is increasingly looking like a race where Mercedes’ advantage was exaggerated by Ferrari underperforming, which Vettel confirmed. “We didn’t change too much compared to Silverstone,” he said. “Which shows on the one hand that Silverstone was just a bad weekend, but we improved the car, especially the race pace.”

Across the stints and on differing compounds at Spa there was almost nothing to chose between them. Hamilton, only hundredths up in the first third, Vettel likewise in the second, with Mercedes’ decision to put Hamilton on soft tyres at the death giving him a one to two-tenths advantage once they had warmed up on the sprint to the finish.

In wringing so much from his car, Vettel’s performance was formidable, skilful and obdurate. The four-time world champion proved again that with confidence in his machinery he can drive the wheels off it. Vettel was able to stay with Hamilton despite running in his turbulent air and efforts to shake him off. That the driver was making the difference was clear, he had opened up a gap to his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, who has won four times at Spa and had been quick all weekend, of just over six seconds after seven laps.

With Ferrari and Mercedes remaining so close and the two leaders being so well-matched the eight race run-in to the title is a mouthwatering prospect. Vettel says Ferrari have nothing to fear on any track and Hamilton knows it will go down to the wire. “The next race maybe it will be the same, or who knows, maybe our gap will be bigger, or they’ll be ahead again. I can’t predict it,” he said.

That next race is Monza, on paper a track that should favour Mercedes – especially in qualifying – with their straight line speed on the straights of the Autodromo Nazionale, where 75% of the lap is at full throttle. But the circuit also features six very heavy braking zones – where Ferrari should have the upper hand. It could prove even tighter than Spa, with the temple of speed hosting a thrill ride.

That it will be packed to the rafters to do so is a given, as the tifosi flock to their home race. It will be the culmination of proof of a simple point in F1: make the racing competitive and in Europe at least there is no problem in attracting fans. The Formula One Group has taken to issuing grand prix attendances as weekend figures which can be misleading but that they have gone up is undeniable.

Spa was heaving, benefiting from the Max Verstappen-Stoffel Vandoorne effect but also reflecting the added attraction in having two teams and two truly great drivers fighting for the championship. The grandstands were full but equally, out on the general entry area of the grassy slopes overlooking the Kemmel Straight, it was rammed from top to fence. They had a record attendance of 265,000 over the weekend – up 11.8% on 2016. Silverstone was packed as always, with 344,500 fans. Barcelona had 178,000 (up 8%); Budapest 199,000 (up 11.5%) and even Austria, which had seen a decline since its return to the calendar, had 145,000, an improvement of 58%.

Formula One’s chief executive, Chase Carey, was at Spa, as he has been at many races thus far. His organisation has many ideas for the future and hopefully he has taken note that while some tracks require Justin Bieber to bring the crowds (although this writer’s preference would be for it to be the Dead Kennedys with Jello Biafra behind the mic – which might not achieve quite what Carey is aiming for). In the sport’s heartlands, decent racing will do the trick.