Championship leader Lewis Hamilton, who will start Sunday’s race at Spa-Francorchamps from last after serving a 55-place grid penalty following further changes to his engine this morning, spent the majority of the one-hour session focusing on his race pace.
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German Nico Rosberg steered clear of the chaos unfolding behind him and cruised to an unchallenged win in a disrupted race on Saturday.
Hamilton, who had incurred multiple grid penalties over the weekend for extra engine part changes, avoided the carnage at the start and gained places when the race was restarted after Magnussen’s smash.
By then he had too much to do to catch Ricciardo but succeeded in limiting the damage to his title bid.
At the age of 18 years and 331 days, Verstappen passed the record of previous youngest front-row starter Ricardo Rodriguez at the 1961 Italian Grand Prix, when he was 19 years and 208 days.
Rosberg managed to take pole position, but by just a tenth of a second to Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.
Rosberg, who finished only seventh in final practice on Saturday morning, said: “We had a hard weekend up to now and especially this morning as we were seriously off the pace on one lap”. We’re sure he’s very happy to have finished in the top 3.
“Congratulations to the guy next to me (Rosberg), this is great for Mercedes and still great for the championship”.
“It’s great for the team that Lewis was able to recover to finish in third place, so overall a great result for us”.
“The good thing now is I have got these engines and hopefully we will have a clean second half of the season”, he said.
Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz skidded out with a shredded rear tyre to end his race, while an action-packed opening spell continued when Magnussen lost control of his Renault and crashed heavily into tyre barriers at Eau Rouge.
“But at the next race I’ve the same amount of engines, if not more than others now, and I can fight in the last eight races”.
“At that point [at the red flag] I was already in the points, which was great, so it was just a case of seeing what I could get”, Hamilton added.
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The Force India’s of Nico Hulkenberg and Sergio Perez finished fourth and fifth respectively while Fernando Alonso, who started at the back of the grid with Hamilton, climbed to an impressive seventh.
