Belgium: Qualifications Seen from the Stands

McLaren

Jenson Button – Pole Position

Lewis Hamilton – 7th

Martin Whitmarsh, Team Principal: « It was a really brilliant lap from Jenson – his first for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes – and he is now in a very good position for tomorrow’s race.

However, this morning during Free Practice 3, neither Jenson nor Lewis were entirely comfortable with the balance or the feel of their cars, a situation that may have been exacerbated by the lack of dry running yesterday. For this afternoon, on a fully dry track, we clearly needed to make some changes. We did that, in consultation with our drivers, and, as things turned out, the changes made to Jenson’s car paid off the best.

By securing pole position, he will be aiming for victory tomorrow – but Lewis, even starting from 7th position, will be hungry for big points. As I said before, and I say it again without any doubt, with Jenson and Lewis, we have the best driver duo in Formula 1, and tomorrow, both of them will aim to demonstrate that once more.

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Sauber

Kamui Kobayashi – 2nd

Sergio Pérez – 4th

Monisha Kaltenborn, Team Principal: « It’s a fantastic result for the team and our best so far. I think it’s very important that after the break we can come back this strong. We have seen the potential and always said that if we could start better placed on the grid, we would show more. We are in this position, and it’s now up to us to continue our momentum tomorrow. I tip my hat to the team at Hinwil who did a superb job to bring a good car here and to the team here at Spa who have done a great job so far. »

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Lotus

Kimi Räikkönen – 3rd

Romain Grosjean – 8th

Alan Permane, Track Operations Director: « It’s a bit disappointing to be honest because we were hoping for a bit more today. Kimi wasn’t able to do a perfect lap and Romain wasn’t completely satisfied with the settings of his car. The car seems to have been more difficult than usual today, with inconsistency making it hard to achieve a good lap. It’s unexpected because, as in previous races, we’ve been able to find good settings very quickly when track time is limited. We hope for a good race, and there doesn’t seem to be any weakness with our car or our strategy. In the race, it will be about tire management as the loads on the tires are very high here. If there are no unexpected events, we hope to score big points. »

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Ferrari

Fernando Alonso – 5th

Felipe Massa – 14th

Stefano Domenicali, Team Principal: « More than ever this afternoon, everyone must be very cautious in analyzing the qualifying results. The three sessions have given us many surprises and a decidedly unusual grid. Fernando’s sixth place is a good foundation to build on for an equally good race result tomorrow afternoon. However, it will be tougher for Felipe starting from the seventh row, but all is certainly not lost for him, and a place in the top 10 is within reach, which would be important points for the Constructors’ Championship.

There is no better circuit than this one to overturn the established hierarchy on Saturday, so it is really impossible to make predictions. We must approach this race with the same mindset we have had so far, which means trying to get the most out of what we have and every opportunity that presents itself. Clearly, no one can be too sure of their race pace because yesterday, it was not possible to perform the usual tire comparisons over long stints: another unknown for a race that is very difficult to predict.

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Williams

Pastor Maldonado – 6th

Bruno Senna – 17th

Mark Gillan, Chief Engineer in Charge of Operations: « After yesterday’s rainy conditions, it was nice to complete a full day of running in the dry. Free Practice 3 was very busy as we had to fit the planned testing from three sessions into one. We went into qualifying hoping for a good result, and Pastor delivered an exceptional lap in Q3 to take 3rd place. Unfortunately, Pastor lost three places after the stewards judged him guilty of impeding Hülkenberg, but sixth place for tomorrow promises an exciting race. Bruno unfortunately finished qualifying in 17th place after damaging a front wing. »

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Force India

Paul di Resta – 9th

Nico Hülkenberg – 11th

Otmar Szafnauer, Chief Operating Officer: « With the little time we had on a dry track this morning, we did a good job adapting the car to the circuit and finding good settings before qualifying. Paul was very competitive in Q2 and managed to get into Q3, but unfortunately, Nico did not make it due to a small mistake in the second sector. We expect dry track conditions for tomorrow’s race and will aim for points with both cars. »

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Red Bull

Sebastian Vettel – 10th

Mark Webber – 12th

Christian Horner, Team Principal: « Tomorrow’s grid is quite unusual. Unfortunately, Mark has received a five-place grid penalty, which we have known since Hungary but was enough to finish the race there. We judged that, strategically speaking, it was better to take the penalty here than to sacrifice points in Budapest. As for Sebastian, he seemed to struggle a lot in the second sector and, unfortunately, missed the mark. Congratulations to Jenson for his pole position. We will give everything to gain positions tomorrow. »

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Mercedes

Michael Schumacher – 13th

Nico Rosberg – 23rd

Ross Brawn, Team Director: « It was a disappointing day for all of us today. Qualifying was difficult, and it proved complicated to get the tires to work in the right window. To be fair to Nico, he didn’t have much luck as he missed most of FP3 this morning, the only opportunity to drive on a dry track. Michael completed a good stint, and it was the best he could do with the current car. Clearly, it’s not enough, and we will continue to work very hard to improve. »

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Toro Rosso

Jean-Eric Vergne – 15th

Daniel Ricciardo – 16th

Laurent Mekies, Chief Engineer: « It’s encouraging to have easily placed both of our cars in Q2. It’s because our two drivers worked well this morning during the last free practice session and they immediately got into the rhythm in Q1. The 15th place is probably the best we could have hoped for and it is a fair reflection of our current performance level, even though we might have found a few additional fractions of a second. It seems that the gap with our direct followers has slightly reduced, but this remains to be confirmed in the race. We did a lot of work this morning, but like everyone, we have done little running in the dry this weekend. This means we can expect an interesting race tomorrow, as always at Spa in fact, with some surprises that could happen due to the lack of tire knowledge. »

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Caterham

Heikki Kovalainen – 18th

Vitaly Petrov – 19th

Mark Smith, Technical Director: « Free Practice 3 was very busy for us and we carried out as much of the program we had planned yesterday as possible. Heikki’s car had a DRS problem and we tried to fix it before qualifying, but it wasn’t fully functional and he took part in Q1 without having the full benefit of his DRS. During qualifying, we opted for two stints on Mediums and finished the session in positions that probably reflect an honest measure of our performance this weekend. Despite everything, I think we can have a good race tomorrow and we will double our efforts to find more performance for Monza, Singapore, and the rest of the season. »

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Marussia

Timo Glock – 20th

Charles Pic – 22nd

John Both, Team Director: Despite a difficult start to the weekend due to the weather on Friday, we have reasons to be positive about this weekend. Due to limited running, it was evident from Free Practice 3 that we hadn’t found the correct balance between qualifying and race settings, and there were shortcomings that affected our qualifying pace. That said, the other aspect is that these areas will be assets for the race, in addition to the improvement in our pace that we usually see on Sundays. Both drivers worked well, but traffic cost Charles, and we haven’t made things easy for ourselves for tomorrow. I have no doubt that during the race, we will be stronger again, since we have shown that we have still made progress in terms of overall pace. The updates are clearly an improvement, so, although we had a difficult start to the weekend, we will need to extract the maximum from it tomorrow.

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HRT

Pedro de la Rosa – 21st

Narain Karthikeyan – 24th

Toni Cuquerella, Technical Director: We practically started from zero this morning after yesterday’s rain, so we had to focus all our testing for the race and qualifications this morning. The track improved lap by lap, and it was important to keep running. And that’s what we did. Pedro put in a fantastic lap, achieving his third-best qualifying percentage of the season (103.7% of the pole), proving that the F112 adapts better to circuits requiring medium downforce. It’s a shame that Narain couldn’t get a clear lap as his time doesn’t reflect his actual speed. The weather forecast for tomorrow predicts dry conditions with slightly higher temperatures, so it’s difficult to predict how the tires will degrade. We might have a two-stop race, but we’ll need to adapt our strategy as needed because Spa is a circuit where overtaking is possible, and our car has good top speed.

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