“This weekend I came here to win the Belgian Grand Prix and I managed to do that”.
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Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg took pole position on Saturday in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix, while team-mate and Championship leader Lewis Hamilton did not set a representative time as he has a 55-place grid penalty for multiple power unit changes.
Rosberg assumed control in the second and third rounds, however, surpassing the pole time from 2015, though he only gained a quarter of a second on his Q2 time in Q3.
Resuming fifteen minutes later, Rosberg led away on the Medium tyre, ahead of Daniel Ricciardo, Nico Hulkenberg, Fernando Alonso’s McLaren & Lewis Hamilton. “But for Nico, who was obviously having a Sunday drive today, he didn’t have any stress from anyone and he was gone by the time I had even got past the Force India [for third]”.
Defending champion Hamilton now leads Rosberg by only nine points in another tight battle between the Mercedes duo, the Englishman minimising the damage by charging successfully through the field.
“It really wasn’t so easy coming into qualifying”, said Rosberg.”We had a hard weekend up to now, especially this morning. It’s such a great motivation”. “To be so close to Mercedes on a track with long straights, we can be very pleased with that”.
The hopes of the orange sea of Dutch fans – and a world champion from Stevenage – will rest today (Sunday) on the teenage shoulders of Max Verstappen, the youngest driver in Formula One’s history to start on the front row.
Ricciardo is third, with 151 points, followed by Vettel, with 128 points and team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, with 124 points.
Hamilton is not the only superstar who will start at the back.
The race was stopped for almost a quarter of an hour after ten rounds, following the overrun of Kevin Magnussen (Renault) after the fifth corner of Eau Rouge. Vettel said, topping off his quick rant with an expletive. “Lost it all again, the traction, the grip”.
The German made the most of pole position, as he avoided trouble to take top spot ahead of Daniel Ricciardo and Lewis Hamilton. “Having made some changes to the vehicle before qualifying, I am very pleased”. Hamilton’s team did not.
This season, he started last in China and finished seventh.
Hamilton feared soaring temperatures will make this the worst place to take grid penalties for exceeding his allotted number of engines for the year.
Given their situation, it made no sense for either Hamilton or Alonso to qualify for the second part of qualifying.
Sauber’s Felipe Nasr finished Q1 just on the wrong side of the cusp, 0.048secs slower than Palmer in P16.
Jenson Button, whose future beyond this season hangs in the balance, was also a first-lap casualty after Pascal Wehrlein drove into the back of his McLaren.
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That display, which Verstappen delivered despite missing the final practice session on yesterday morning with a gearbox problem, gave his legions of orange-clad supporters thronging the grandstands plenty to cheer about.
