Rosberg managed to take pole position, but by just a tenth of a second to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
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“We have had a hard weekend up to now, especially this morning [in final practice]”, he said.
With nothing to gain, Hamilton did only four laps early in qualifying before rolling into the team garage.
“We got the job done having made some changes to the auto before qualifying, I’m pleased”, Rosberg said, but warned the heatwave in Belgium would be hard on the tyres during the race.
“What I’m saying is that there are other places you could overtake if the vehicle in front is struggling, but that’s unlikely as you get further up the grid”. “And from a team point of view it covers both options, here and now we don’t know which one the best one is”. It’s a bit of a vicious circle, because the more downforce you put on the vehicle, the more you use the tyres, the better you put them in the window.
“I think long run pace will be a little pacier at least for me. My aim has always been to be able to win races in F1, and if this is not possible for me I will go and do something else”. My disadvantage at the start is that I have a harder tire with lower grip, so Max should get off the line quicker on the Supersoft.
Four-time world champion Sebastian Vettel was third in the second Ferrari ahead of Finn Valtteri Bottas of Williams and, remarkably, defending world champion and current championship leader Lewis Hamilton of Mercedes. That should give his Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo the advantage as the race wears on, but the Australian will still have been disappointed to only qualify down in fifth.
“The key for me is making sure I come out of tomorrow having lost the fewest points possible – and that meant having as many fresh sets of tires available as possible and making sure the vehicle was set up well”.
Hamilton will start on the final row of the grid after taking several engine penalties this weekend to build up a pool of power units for the rest of the season.
The Renault duo of Magnussen and Palmer also departed, along with Carlos Sainz and German Pascal Wehrlein, who qualified in an impressive 16th place.
Though Mercedes has used a quirk in the regulations to effectively ensure Hamilton will not get any more grid penalties this year, team boss Toto Wolff has revealed the team had pushed for that loophole to be closed ahead of the 2016 season. The Briton will serve a 55-place penalty, dropping him to last. Manor’s Esteban Ocon on his debut qualifying session, will start in 17th, with Toro Rosso’s Daniil Kvyat also eliminated in the first session in 19th place.
“They had it for some other people which it wasn’t correct, and the people watching it don’t care about that – it’s far too technical, far too complicated”.
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“There will be lots of pit stops and who knows what else”.
