Rosberg takes Pole in a tense wet qualifying session at Spa

Rosberg takes Pole in a tense wet qualifying session at Spa

This afternoon saw Nico Rosberg heaped yet more qualifying frustration on Lewis Hamilton by beating his title rival to pole position in a tense wet qualifying hour at the Belgian GP. Rosberg set a lap time of 2:05.591 to claim his fourth consecutive pole by just over two tenths of a second from his team mate.

For the seventh race in a row, Rosberg will start ahead of his Mercedes team-mate and sole rival for the Drivers’ Championship on the grid with Hamilton coming up short in Q3 at Spa. This is despite Hamilton setting the practice pace on Friday for the sixth straight weekend and then heading the Q2 timesheet in the kind of slippery track conditions he traditionally excels.

Yet, Hamilton's previous two Saturday defeats to Rosberg could be put down to rank bad luck as mechanical problems intervened, on this occasion he was beaten in a straight duel as he put himself on the back foot at the start of Q3 with a mistake at La Source and his team-mate held his nerve.

Unusually, given rain is usually considered the greatest of levellers in F1, runaway championship leaders Mercedes were completely untroubled by their rivals in the rest, leaving the leading members of the supporting cast to fight for 'best of the rest' honours.

Despite missing all of Friday afternoon's running, it was Sebastian Vettel who slightly surprisingly finished in third place in the lead Red Bull and just holding off Fernando Alonso who capped his strong form throughout the weekend so far by finishing in fourth place which is his and Ferrari's joint-best grid slot of the season.

Behind Alonso, Hungarian GP victor Daniel Ricciardo had to settle for fifth place after running wide on the exit of Blanchimont on his final effort and is ahead of Valtteri Bottas who finished the session in sixth place.

McLaren rookie Kevin Magnussen evened up his inter-team qualifying duel with Jenson Button who finished in seventh place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in eighth place, Felipe Massa in ninth place and his own team mate who finished in tenth place.

Daniil Kvyat finished the session in eleventh place and once again ahead of his more experienced team mate Jean-Eric Vergne in twelfth place. Sergio Perez finished the session in thirteenth place ahead of Adrian Sutil in fourteenth place, Romain Grosjean in fifteenth place and Jules Bianchi in sixteenth place who managed an incredible lap in Q1 in order to take place in Q2.

Pastor Maldonado in his Lotus continued not to have a great weekend as he finished the session in seventeenth place after experiencing a spin in Q1 as he approached the Bus Stop Chicane. Nico Hulkenberg had a disastrous qualifying and only managed to finish in eighteenth place.

As we head down the grid, Max Chilton finished the session in nineteenth place ahead of Esteban Guiterrez in twentieth place who had to stop during Q1 with problems with his C33. Andre Lotterer qualified ahead of his team mate Marcus Ericsson comfortably by over a second, proving that experience racing at the Spa circuit has it's advantages.

The official classification of Qualifying at the Belgian Grand Prix is as follows below

Nico Rosberg Mercedes 2.05.591
Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 0.228s
Sebastian Vettel Red Bull-Renault 2.126s
Fernando Alonso Ferrari 2.195s
Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull-Renault 2.320s
Valtteri Bottas Williams-Mercedes 2.458s
Kevin Magnussen McLaren-Mercedes 3.088s
Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 3.189s
Felipe Massa Williams-Mercedes 3.387s
Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 4.185s
Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso 2.09.377
Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 2.09.805
Sergio Perez Force India-Mercedes 2.10.084
Adrian Sutil Sauber-Ferrari 2.10.238
Romain Grosjean Lotus-Renault 2.11.087
Jules Bianchi Marussia-Ferrari 2.12.470
Pastor Maldonado Lotus-Renault 2.11.261
Nico Hulkenberg Force India-Mercedes 2.11.267
Max Chilton Marussia-Ferrari 2.12.506
Esteban Guiterrez Sauber-Ferrari 2.13.414
Andre Lotterer Caterham-Renault 2.13.469
Marcus Ericsson Caterham-Renault 2.14.438

Another great Graham and Leigh piece “Spa”