Sebastian Vettel will start on pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix after an incident packed qualifying session that saw disappointment for Michael Schumacher and Jenson Button and a bizarre incident involving Lewis Hamilton and Pastor Maldonado.
Vettel snatched pole by being last over the line, with his time of 1:48.298 being just over 0.4s quicker than Hamilton, who had crossed the line to take provisional pole only seconds earlier. Mark Webber was third quickest on his birthday, a full second slower than his team-mate as the evolving track saw a big split in lap times.
Felipe Massa starts fourth ahead of Nico Rosberg, the impressive Jaime Alguersuari and the even more impressive Bruno Senna, who comfortably outqualified team-mate Vitaly Petrov - the second Renault starting tenth behind Fernando Alonso and Sergio Perez. Button was the victim of a lack of communication which left him 13th and out in Q2.
After the torrential rain that disrupted preparations during the morning practice session, clear skies and a drying track greeted the teams and drivers for the start of qualifying.
Despite the improvement in conditions, there was immediate drama involving one of Spa's favourite sons as Schumacher lost his right rear wheel on the approach to turn 8 causing his Mercedes to career into the barrier and out of qualifying. Not exactly the way the seven-time world champion hoped to kick off the 20th anniversary of his grand prix debut at the same venue with the lowest grid position of his distinguished career.
With rain forecast ten minutes into Q1, drivers made the most of the conditions to lay down early markers on intermediate rubber. Just as the track began to dry, so the rain returned and Paul di Resta joined Schumacher as the big casualties of Q1 as a last gasp Heikki Kovalainen gap knocked him out.
A damper Q2 also brought its fair share of drama and further misfortune for Force India, Adrian Sutil losing control after taking too much kerb at Radillon and impacting heavily with the barrier. But the biggest drama was yet to come as not only did Button miss out on Q3 but Pastor Maldonado seemed to deliberately swerve into Hamilton's car on the run down to Eau Rouge in what looked like retribution for the McLaren driver squeezing him in the final corner. The race stewards will look carefully at the incident but it looks as though the Williams driver will face some form of punishment.
© ESPN EMEA Ltd.
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