Mark Webber was delighted to secure his fifth pole position of the season, after the Red Bull driver pipped Lewis Hamilton in Belgium.
The world championship leader made the most of a drying track in Q3 to haul his RB6 on to the front row. With this, the Australian driver is confident of challenging for victory in tomorrow’s race and extending his lead at the top of the championship.
Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel was left ruing a mistake on his final lap, which forced him to settle for fourth on the grid.
Mark Webber, 1st: Spa is certainly a great venue to get pole – it’s a very special track. I was very happy with my first lap in Q3, but you never know in the current company if it’s enough. You get to the finish and wait for [engineer] Ciaron to come on the radio and say ‘P…?’ and you’re thinking ‘what is it?’.
At that point the lap was enough, but then you have to do it again. You get another set of tyres and see how you go. We had a rain shower, which spiced things up and made it hard for people to improve. Lewis did a pretty good job to improve to P2 at the end when La Source was a bit greasy. I’m pleased to be on pole and tomorrow’s race is going to be interesting, I don’t think the race will be won on the first lap. I’m looking forward to it.
Sebastian Vettel, 4th: We had a bad start with Q1 being last out of the box. It gave us the advantage of not suffering any traffic, but then you’re the one who has to face the most water on the track with dry tyres it was tricky. Fortunately we could get a lap in on the intermediate tyres and we were safe, but you never know in these conditions. Q2 was comfortable and in Q3 it turned out that the first run was most important. There was a bit of rain in the first corner and my first try in Q3 wasn’t good enough, simple as that. I made a couple of mistakes at the beginning of the first sector and lost momentum.
On the last lap I made a good recovery and it was quicker than my first try, but then I went a bit sideways in Turn 14 and that was it. The most important thing today was that the car was very good, good enough to be ahead of everyone else. It didn’t happen for me today, so we need to do it tomorrow.
Christian Horner: Our 12th pole of the year in such difficult conditions demonstrates what a great job the team and Mark did today. Fourth place for Sebastian backs up an excellent team performance. Mark made the best of the circuit when it was at it’s fastest at the beginning of Q3. Sebastian dropped some time at Turns 13 and 14, otherwise I think we would have had another Red Bull front row lock-out, but it’s great to see both cars right up there.
Fabrice Lom: A very difficult session with all the mixed conditions, but I think we managed very well. The team did a great job at being on the track at the right time. It was a difficult Q1, but we made it and our performance increased session after session. It’s a good result we got pole position with Mark, he did a great lap at the start of Q3 and Seb is fourth. We were close to a 1-2-3 for Renault, but Lewis did a great lap. I think we are in a good position for a great race tomorrow, but you never know what the conditions will be and it will be tough. The engines may suffer also on this hard track, but we will do our best.
