Rosberg’s hopes of reigniting his title challenge may have deflated in the wake of Hamilton’s stunning performance. The weather has been great here too which makes this circuit even more fun to drive and what a great crowd.
It had looked like Rosberg would be the one on pole today, as he had been ahead of the Brit in both of Friday’s sessions.
Q3: Times come flying in, Hamilton fastest now with a!:47:4. However, it didn’t go as planned for Nico Rosberg.
“The start was really bad so I need to practice that”, said Rosberg. who recovered to finish second.
The company said the failure was caused by a puncture created by unidentified external debris. “And so to come here this weekend and to have got the qualifying and to translate it today, phew, I feel so glad in my heart”.
Raikkonen will line-up ahead of Max Verstappen, however, who opted not to take part in Q2 due to a 10-place grid penalty he will take for taking a sixth power unit.
Valtteri Bottas was third in his Williams for his best result in qualifying this season. Lotus driver Romain Grosjean is also set to be demoted five places following a gearbox change.
Australian Daniel Ricciardo, last year’s surprise victor in Spa, will start in fifth place with the Williams of Brazilian Felipe Massa in sixth.
Vettel couldn’t finish the race. “I was cautious at the end because of tires but I brought it home”.
“Nico had obviously good pace but I was able to answer most of the time”, Hamilton said.
There weren’t any major dramas but Ferrari’s other man Kimi Räikkönen, who was quite quick during the practice sessions, suffered vehicle problems during Q2.
Wilson was airlifted out of the track with a head injury after he was hit by a large piece of debris that broke off Sage Karam’s auto when Karam spun into the wall.
Red Bull ran its Monza-spec at Spa, which allowed Daniil Kvyat and Ricciardo to attack on the straights.
The score in victories between Hamilton and Rosberg since they became teammates in 2013 is 18-10 to the Briton. “I’ll be pushing as hard as ever for sure”.
The concerns of Rosberg, whose wife Vivian is expecting their first child at any time were shared by defending world champion Hamilton. Bottas was 1.340 seconds off the pace.
“It is the same with me, I didn’t go off the track – it is out of the blue the tyre exploded – and as I said if this happens earlier than I am f****d”. “It should be a close fight tomorrow. So, we knew P3 could be possible if we get everything perfectly and it was close and we managed to get everything right and this was the result. It was a Mercedes dominated qualifying with the top five positions occupied by the Silver Arrows backed cars.
It was by no means a ideal getaway in the first race with drivers having to judge their own clutch settings without the aid of their engineers on the pit radio, but it was good enough, unlike Rosberg’s.
Finally, McLaren failed once more top score points, but Alonso did finish in 13th and Button in 14th, a decent showing considering the state of the cars and the fact they started at the back of the grid after their combined 105 place penalty.