Customary changeable weather during qualifying at Spa
Webber's lap was predictably strone - but Hamilton's ballsy P2 lap at the end of Q3 with rain starting to fall was sublime.
Also note a great performance from Kubica - and poor effort from Alonso.
Red Bull qualifying Quotes
Mark Webber (1st, Q3 )“Spa is certainly a great venue to get pole - it’s a very special track. I was very happy with my first lap in Q3, but you never know in the current company if it’s enough. You get to the finish and wait for Ciaron (Mark’s engineer) to come on the radio and say ‘P...?’ and you’re thinking ‘what is it?’. At that point the lap was enough, but then you have to do it again. You get another set of tyres and see how you go. We had a rain shower, which spiced things up and made it hard for people to improve. Lewis (Hamilton) did a pretty good job to improve to P2 at the end when La Source was a bit greasy. I’m pleased to be on pole and tomorrow’s race is going to be interesting, I don’t think the race will be won on the first lap. I’m looking forward to it.”
Sebastian Vettel (4th, Q3)“We had a bad start with Q1 being last out of the box. It gave us the advantage of not suffering any traffic, but then you’re the one who has to face the most water on the track with dry tyres - it was tricky. Fortunately we could get a lap in on the intermediate tyres and we were safe, but you never know in these conditions. Q2 was comfortable and in Q3 it turned out that the first run was most important. There was a bit of rain in the first corner and my first try in Q3 wasn’t good enough, simple as that. I made a couple of mistakes at the beginning of the first sector and lost momentum. On the last lap I made a good recovery and it was quicker than my first try, but then I went a bit sideways in Turn 14 and that was it. The most important thing today was that the car was very good, good enough to be ahead of everyone else. It didn’t happen for me today, so we need to do it tomorrow.”
Christian Horner, Red Bull team principal“Our 12th pole of the year in such difficult conditions demonstrates what a great job the team and Mark did today. Fourth place for Sebastian backs up an excellent team performance. Mark made the best of the circuit when it was at it’s fastest at the beginning of Q3. Sebastian dropped some time at Turns 13 and 14, otherwise I think we would have had another Red Bull front row lock-out, but it’s great to see both cars right up there.”
Fabrice Lom, Renault’s principal track support engineer to Red Bull“A very difficult session with all the mixed conditions, but I think we managed very well. The team did a great job at being on the track at the right time. It was a difficult Q1, but we made it and our performance increased session after session. It’s a good result - we got pole position with Mark, he did a great lap at the start of Q3 and Seb is fourth. We were close to a 1-2-3 for Renault, but Lewis did a great lap. I think we are in a good position for a great race tomorrow, but you never know what the conditions will be and it will be tough. The engines may suffer also on this hard track, but we will do our best.”
Q31. Mark Webber RBR-Renault 1:45.778 2. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:45.863 18 3. Robert Kubica Renault 1:46.100 4. Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 1:46.127 5. Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:46.206 18 6 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:46.314 7. Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:46.602 8. Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:46.659 9. Nico Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:47.053 10 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:47.441
Q2 11 Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 1:47.874 12 Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 1:47.885 13 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 1:48.267 14 Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:48.680 15 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 1:49.209 16 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:50.980 17 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:52.049
Q1 18 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 2:01.491 19 Kamui Kobayashi BMW Sauber-Ferrari 2:02.284 20 Bruno Senna HRT-Cosworth 2:03.612 21 Sakon Yamamoto HRT-Cosworth 2:03.941 22 Pedro de la Rosa BMW Sauber-Ferrari 2:05.294 23 Lucas di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 2:18.754 24 Vitaly Petrov Renault No time
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