Lewis Hamilton has stolen his fifth pole position of the 2008
Formula 1 World Championship campaign, after getting the better of chief title competitor
Felipe Massa in a tense qualifying session for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend.
With rain as ever hanging in the air in the Ardennes region,
Nelsinho Piquet – the only driver in the field with the unenviable record of having been out-qualified by his team-mate on every single occasion thus far in 2008 – was the first man to take to the track at the start of Q1, as had been the case in Valencia a fortnight earlier, with
Force India duo
Giancarlo Fisichella and
Adrian Sutil, and
Williams'
Kazuki Nakajima next to follow.
Massa and F1 World Championship leader Hamilton were the first of the big-hitters to show their hand, though the latter was complaining of a vibration in his McLaren-Mercedes – even if it did not prevent him from obliterating his
Ferrari rival's opening effort by almost a full eight tenths of a second.
Heikki Kovalainen was some seven tenths adrift in the sister MP4-23 – albeit still quicker than Massa – with defending world champion
Kimi Raikkonen slotting in behind the trio, and
Sebastian Vettel again showing strongly well up the order in his
Scuderia Toro Rosso, building on the fifth-fastest time he had produced in the morning practice session.
Jarno Trulli then impressively went quickest of anyone in the middle sector
en route to P5 on his first run, demoting Vettel to sixth, with fellow
STR ace Sébastien Bourdais narrowly behind in seventh.
BMW-Sauber were next to make their move, with
Robert Kubica placing his
F1.08 fifth and
Nick Heidfeld popping up just a tenth of a second and two places further in arrears. That left the Hondas of
Jenson Button and
Rubens Barrichello, Sutil and more surprisingly the two Williams' of Nakajima and
Nico Rosberg in the danger zone.
