Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel edges Lewis Hamilton of McLaren to take 2011 Belgian Grand Prix pole
The month-long summer break of the 2011 Formula 1 season did not do any harm to Sebastian Vettel’s driving skills as he edged out Lewis Hamilton of McLaren to take the pole ahead of the 2011 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps under extremely unpredictable
weather conditions.
The German put a best lap time of 1 minute and 48.298 seconds which will enable him to start the Belgian Grand Prix from the top spot. His teammate, Mark Webber, who was leading the Q3 at one time, finished third best with 1 minute and 49.376 seconds.
Hamilton, on the other hand, was marginally behind Vettel as he managed a best time of 1 minute and 48.730 seconds to start the Grand Prix from the front row.
Just when Hamilton set the fastest time of the session, he had an accident with Pastor Maldonado of Williams who appeared to have caused the incident deliberately by driving to his left.
Hamilton’s teammate, Jenson Button fell victim of a misunderstanding with his team. He was ruled out from the third qualifier session as he finished 13th after Q2.
Surprisingly enough, Felipe Massa of Ferrari outperformed his teammate Fernando Alonso by almost a second to take the fourth spot with 1 minute and 50.256 seconds. Alonso had to settle for the eighth position on the starting grid.
Nico Rosberg of Mercedes qualified marginally behind Massa in the fifth place with a best lap time of 1 minute and 50.552 seconds.
The surprise of the day was Jaime Alguersuari of Toro Rosso who qualified in sixth place.
Bruno Senna of Renault, who had a poor start to the race weekend, showed a lot of promise and qualified in a strong seventh place.
Sergio Perez of Sauber managed a ninth place for the starting grid of the Belgian Grand Prix while Vitaly Petrov rounded off the top ten places for the raceday.
The 12th round of the 2011 Formula 1 season, the Belgian Grand Prix will get underway on Sunday, August 28, 2011 at the Spa-Francorchamps.
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