Hamilton Claims Pole In Spa
By Emma Aitken
September 6 2008
The weather was changeable this afternoon in Spa and pole position changed hands a bit too! Massa thought he had it in the bag after doing what he thought was enough on his final lap in his Ferarri. But Hamilton came out on his final lap, hooked it all up and claimed pole for himself.
September 6 2008
The weather was changeable this afternoon in Spa and pole position changed hands a bit too! Massa thought he had it in the bag after doing what he thought was enough on his final lap in his Ferarri. But Hamilton came out on his final lap, hooked it all up and claimed pole for himself.
McLaren had a great afternoon in Spa with Hamilton beating Massa to pole position and Kovalainen beating world champion Raikkonen to third. Massa looked to have secured pole position in his final lap until Hamilton came out on his final lap and beat him to it with a time of 1m.47.338s.
Nick Heidfeld put in a good effort to qualify ahead of his team mate Kubica for only the second time. The German, who has a lot to prove to his team after some poor performances took fifth, with Kubica a few places behind him in eighth.
Red Bull resumed some order with sister team Toro Rosso by qualifying ahead of them as Mark Webber put in a solid performance throughout to finish in seventh.
Bourdais and Vettel still did a great job for Toro Rosso though and will line up ninth and tenth respectively for tomorrow’s race.
Once again, Piquet could not match the performance of his team mate in the sister Renault. Alonso made it through to Q3 to complete the session in sixth. Piquet went no further than Q2 and will start in twelfth.
Toyota were struggling in the cool conditions of Spa. Webber’s resurgence at the end of Q2 meant Jarno Trulli had to settle for eleventh place. Glock wasn’t too far behind him in thirteenth.
While Webber found those all important tenths as time went on this afternoon, Coulthard could not. His Red Bull looked good throughout Q1 but only managed to find another one-tenth of a second in Q2 and finished in fourteenth.
The FW30 of Rosberg and Nakajima did not have a good session. The aero-dependant Spa circuit was not a comfortable one for either driver. Rosberg could only make fifteenth and the only car Nakajima could beat was the Force India of Fisichella. The rookie Williams driver will find himself on the back row of the grid for the first time in his F1 career in nineteenth place.
Neither Honda’s progressed further than Q1. The cool weather gave them problems with getting heat in to their Bridgestone tyres. It’s sixteenth for Barrichello with team mate Button just behind him in seventeenth.
| POS | Driver | Team |
| 1 | Hamilton | McLaren |
| 2 | Massa | Ferrari |
| 3 | Kovalainen | McLaren |
| 4 | Raikkonen | Ferrari |
| 5 | Heidfeld | BMW |
| 6 | Alonso | Renault |
| 7 | Webber | Red Bull Racing |
| 8 | Kubica | BMW |
| 9 | Bourdais | Toro Rosso |
| 10 | Vettel | Toro Rosso |
| 11 | Trulli | Toyota |
| 12 | Piquet | Renault |
| 13 | Glock | Toyota |
| 14 | Coulthard | Red Bull Racing |
| 15 | Rosberg | Williams |
| 16 | Barrichello | Honda |
| 17 | Button | Honda |
| 18 | Sutil | Force India |
| 19 | Nakajima | Williams |
| 20 | Fisichella | Force India |
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