SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium – It was an amazing qualifying session in Spa-Francorchamps today with the changing weather conditions– from wet to dry — forcing cars out on the track throughout the sessions to ensure the fastest lap by the end of the sessions.
Right down to the final seconds the leaders changed, with provisional pole shared between drivers. But for the ninth time this season, Sebastian Vettel, the leader of the series and reigning world champion, scored the pole position in his Red Bull. Lewis Hamilton was second in his McLaren Mercedes, while Vettel’s teammate, Mark Webber, was third.
“It was a difficult session, Q1 and Q2 with very tricky conditions, and the circuit drying,” Vettel said. “I didn’t feel comfortable in the beginning. In Q3 we were quite sure with dry tires, but quite sure if it doesn’t rain it would be all down to the last lap because the circuit would improve.”
The wet track took a few victims as well, including Adrian Sutil of the Force India team, who spun off and out of the second session, damaging his car and causing the red flag to stop the session for a few minutes with six minutes left. The final six minutes were a hectic free-for-all as the cars vied for position in the top 10.
Another victim of the day was Michael Schumacher who lost a wheel and spun off and out on his first lap, damaging his car. He will start the race from last position on the 20th anniversary of his first race at this track and in Formula One. The German holds the record of victories at Spa, with six wins.
After a poor start to his debut with the Lotus Renault team, Bruno Senna, the nephew of the man who won five times at this track, Ayrton Senna, managed to succeed in the qualifying session and will start the race from seventh position. That was one spot higher than Fernando Alonso in the Ferrari. Senna also out-qualified his teammate, Vitaly Petrov, who will start from tenth position.
Senna had crashed out after seven laps in the first practice session.