Hamilton takes pole at Mercedes-dominated Spa-Francorchamps

F1 Grand Prix, GP Belgium, Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps

Lewis Hamilton took pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix, leading team mate Nico Rosberg by half a second. The session was dominated by Mercedes-powered cars, with only Ricciardo managed to qualify in the top 8 without a Mercedes engine in the back of his car.

Belgian Grand Prix qualifying got under way under sunny skies, with not the least chance of the shower for the rest of the day.

The weather encouraged many to come out early, with both Mercedes drivers notably out early on the medium Pirelli tyres. Both set a time that appeared to be good enough to get through to Q2, even though they opted later on to have another go on the mediums.

All others though, despite earlier attempts on the mediums for some, eventually went on the soft tyres for the best single lap performance.

Close to the chequered flag of Q1, Perez stunned to post the fastest time, only to get beaten by the Mercedes factory cars a minute later. It did show the potential that is in the Force India Mercedes. Bottas eventually posted the 4th best time in Q1, ahead of Sainz, Vettel, Raikkonen, Grosjean, Kvyat and Hulkenberg.

Out however are Nasr, followed by Button, Alonso, Stevens and Merhi.

In Q2, all went out on the softer tyre, with both Mercedes again among the first to take the track. Action however was soon interrupted when Kimi Raikkonen came to a halt just before Turn 14. He'll exit in Q2 as a result - bad luck once again. He mentioned "something broke" to his race engineer while a rumbling metallic sound came out of the engine compartment.

The red flag that was brought out to remove the car from the track just lasted for 5 minutes before the session got restarted with little more than 8 minutes left to go. At that time, just 6 cars posted a time, with Rosberg fastest, ahead of Hamilton.

No further incidents happened during the session, with in the end Hulkenberg settling for 11th, ahead of Kvyat, Ericsson and of course Kimi Raikkonen. Replays showed later that Hulkenberg was caught out by the tail wind into turn 1, missing his braking point and losing the tenths that cost him a place into Q3.

In the final part of qualifying, Hamilton was again the first man out, 20 seconds further down the track followed by Rosberg. Hamilton proved fastest, with Bottas and Massa for Williams slotting in behind in 3rd and 4th, faster still than Vettel in 5th. Ricciardo jumped ahead of Vettel one minute later, with Maldonado setting 7th and Grosjean 8th before everybody returned to the pits to take on another set of soft tyres.

On the second runs, Hamilton went fastest again, half a second quicker than Rosberg. Bottas took third on the grid, ahead of Grosjean and Perez, securing complete top 5 for Mercedes. In fact, the 8 fastest cars are all Mercedes powered, except for Ricciardo who managed to take 6th. Vettel surprisingly ended up in 9th.