Vettel storms to Spa pole position

Sebastian Vettel stormed to pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix, beating Hamilton by four tenths of a second. The German thus maintained RBR’s domination in qualifying.

His teammate Mark Webber qualified in third place ahead of Ferrari’s Massa. Nico Rosberg will share the third row of the grid with a sensational Jaime Alguersuari.

For his first race with LRGP, Bruno Senna did extremely well, making his way through to Q3 and out-qualifying his teammate Petrov. The Brazilian will line up on the fourth row alongside a disappointed Alonso.

Pérez and Petrov complete the top ten.

Jenson Button was a shock elimination in Q2 and qualified in 13th place. Michael Schumacher crashed in Q1 because of a loose rear wheel.

How the session unfolded :

Q1

Rain had stopped during the lunch break but restarted minutes before the start of the qualifying session. All cars were fitted with intermediate tyres and filtered out of the pitlane as the track was opened.

In such unpredictable conditions, no one was willing to take a chance with the weather and preferred to bank in an early lap time. It almost immediately went wrong for Michael Schumacher though as he crashed his Mercedes at Rivage in his out lap. Replays showed he lost a rear wheel, which caused his crash.

Lewis Hamilton set the early pace ahead of Alonso and Massa but things changed very quickly as the track conditions improved rapidly. Both Red Bulls jumped at the front while Sutil and di Resta slotted in third and fourth for Force India. Button then set the 2nd fastest time to split the Red Bull pair.

A drying line appeared on some parts of the track while it remained really wet in other places. Both McLarens kept on upping the pace, thus pushing the Virgin and HRT drivers out of the 107% time.

It started raining again in the dying moments of Q1. Button held on to top spot ahead of Webber, Hamilton, Vettel and Alonso.

Michael Schumacher, Daniel Ricciardo, Tonio Liuzzi, Jérôme d’Ambrosio failed to qualify within the 107% mark. Glock, Trulli and di Resta were also eliminated. Kovalainen meanwhile wrestled his way through to Q2.

Q2

It was still raining when the 2nd segment of qualifying started. Once again the drivers were quick to leave the pits and kick off their effort. RRB and McLaren resumed their fight at the front and slotted in the top four positions.

Webber was leading from Vettel when the session was red-flagged. Adrian Sutil had just crashed his Force India at Raidillon, ripping off the front wing.

Cars were queuing up at the exit of the pitlane when the session resumed. There were many improvements in the final minutes. Alonso topped the timesheets with a late effort, beating Hamilton, Webber and Vettel under the chequered flag.

The drivers eliminated were Buemi, Kobayashi, Button, Barrichello, Sutil, Maldonado and Kovalainen.

Q3

Conditions remained stable at the start of the pole shoot out. Slick tyres were now fitted on the cars.

All the drivers stayed on track for a single long run. The battle was once again between Hamilton and the Red Bull cars. It was close between the three of them and, with one minute left, Vettel was leading from Webber and Hamilton.

The McLaren driver did his very best but couldn’t break Red Bull’s stranglehold on pole position. Vettel crossed the line a few seconds behind him and claimed another pole.

Webber ended with the third fastest time and will be joined on the second row of the grid by Felipe Massa. Alonso’s Ferrari was a disappointing 8th.