Hamilton’s Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg will start from pole position, with Max Verstappen guiding his Red Bull to second.
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“It really wasn’t so easy coming into qualifying”, said Rosberg.”We had a hard weekend up to now, especially this morning”.
The only vehicle behind Hamilton will be Fernando Alonso, who couldn’t make it more than 500 meters on a new power unit in qualifying.
Hamilton started from the back of the field after he was served with a grid penalty following a number of engine changes here this weekend.
Rosberg’s life was made a lot easier when the next three men on the grid, Max Verstappen, Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel, went three-wide into Turn 1 and made contact, dropping each man out of contention.
He crossed the line over 10 seconds ahead of second-place Daniel Ricciardo while Lewis Hamilton, who raced from the back of the grid, was third.
German Nico Rosberg steered clear of the chaos unfolding behind him and cruised to an unchallenged win in a disrupted race on Saturday.
However, a chaotic opening lap and fortunate red flag period helped promote Hamilton to fifth after the opening ten laps, with the triple world champion going on to finish third.
The season is already a two-horse race between the Mercedes drivers and to remove one of them from the equation of qualifying is a poor solution for punters who have come to see racing rather than tactics based on engine rules.
“It’s been a great weekend, very happy of course”, Rosberg said.
“After the checkered flag, I looked at the results and I knew Daniel [Ricciardo] was behind me, and then I see “HAM” in P3 and I was like, ‘What?”
But perhaps Hamilton will consider that he was the real victor on a day of dramatic crashes that led to a safety vehicle being deployed and then a red flag, meaning all cars had to return to the pits before a restart.
Mexican Sergio Perez was sixth ahead of his Force India team-mate Nico Hulkenberg, Valtteri Bottas of Williams, Jenson Button of McLaren Honda and Felipe Massa in the second Williams. “It’s ridiculous. It’s good TV if someone is moaning, but especially after (the first corner) when they do something like that I’m not going to give up my position easily”.
It means Hamilton’s lead at the top is down to nine points as the Formula One circus heads to Italy, Monza next weekend.
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Hamilton always knew he would have a tough race in Spa because he faced grid penalties for using too many engine parts after reliability problems early in the season.
