Red Bull secured its 12th P1 of the season in Spa with Mark Webber securing pole in an occasionally turbulent Belgian Grand Prix qualifying.
Webber posted his fastest time in his first effort of Q3, just before rain returned and prevented anyone bettering his time. Sebastian Vettel finished fourth behind Lewis Hamilton and Robert Kubica in third.
Mark was particularly pleased to continue our success in qualifying here: “Spa is certainly a great venue to get pole – it’s a very special track,” he said. “I’m very 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.”
While Vettel was happy with the car’s performance, some slight errors prevented him joining Mark on the front row. “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,” said Seb. “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.”
The fun and games began in Q1 which started in brilliant sunshine but was stopped after Vitaly Petrov slipped off a kerb and into the barrier. Out came the red flags and, as the cars waited to return to the track, dark clouds and rain rolled into play. Subsequently Lucas di Grassi, Adrian Sutil and Jarno Trulli all went off at Stavelot and both Saubers came off after their experiment on slick tyres proved less than successful. Mercedes had a torrid time with both their drivers being eliminated in Q2 and both now have grid-play penalties: Rosberg drops five places for a gearbox change to go with Schumacher’s 10-place penalty for his move beside Barrichello in Hungary.
But it was another good day for the RB6, taking a pole at (another…) track we were not supposed to succeed at. Christian Horner said: “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. Had Sebastian not dropped some time at T13 and 14 I think we would have had another Red Bull front row lock-out, but it’s great to see both cars right up there.”
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