The pole brought Hamilton - who with 44 points behind Vettel is fourth overall - his seventh front row start of the season. PHOTO: REUTERS
Lewis Hamilton secured his fourth consecutive pole position with a perfectly-timed lap in rollercoaster weather conditions in the final seconds of yesterday’s qualifying session for today’s Belgian Grand Prix.
The 28-year-old Briton, in his Mercedes, grabbed his fifth pole of the year and 31st of his career with a late lap that saw him clock a best time of two minutes and 1.012 seconds.
Hamilton’s lap delivered a final stunning moment of drama at the very end of a qualifying hour packed with incident and shocks as sweeping rain produced rapidly-changing conditions.
Sebastian Vettel, the series leader, wound up second ahead of teammate Mark Webber with Hamilton’s Mercedes team-mate German Nico Rosberg fourth.
It brought Hamilton his seventh front row start of the season on a memorable afternoon from start to finish.
“It was a good job by the team,” said Hamilton. “It’s a blessing I am up here. Generally I feel comfortable in changing conditions. I can find the limit and I pushed through the middle sector and really caned it.”
In quintessentially capricious Spa conditions, with the track drying out following a pre-session downpour, the first part of qualifying saw the Caterham and Marussia teams create a surprise after making an early switch from ‘wet’ tyres to intermediates.
This resulted in a dramatic final few minutes to Q1 that saw Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso fastest ahead of a rejuvenated Hamilton with Dutchman Guido van der Garde remarkably taking third for Caterham ahead of Rosberg.
Marussia also delivered a shock with Frenchman Jules Bianchi 11th and Briton Max Chilton 16th, his first experience of progressing.
The circuit continued to dry in Q2 and the drivers responded by switching to softer compound tyres as the top contenders, including Hamilton, Rosberg and Vettel, left their running until the final five minutes.
As the lap times tumbled, this produced a frantic finish that saw Raikkonen quickest and Hamilton scraping through to the top-ten shootout in 10th place.
Just as Q3 began, rain fell again, providing Hamilton a chance to display his prowess in ‘changing conditions’.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 25th, 2013.
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