Button and Kobayashi on the front row at Spa

Photo: David Morecambe

For Button it was the first pole position in over three years, since Monaco in 2009. For Kamui Kobayashi it was almost historic, only the second time a Japanese drive qualified on the front row (the first was Takoma Sato at the European GP at the Nürburgring in 2004 driving for BAR Honda) while the last time a Sauber was on the front row was in 1999 at Magny Cours driven by Jean Alesi. I believe it's also the first time a team led by a woman is on the front row of a Grand Prix, cool.



But it was Jenson's morning, Close to a perfect lap, not sure what they are going to do when they cut the engines to 1.6L. they better have very skinny tires otherwise they really will be flat the whole lap!
Hamilton was only 8th an late whined on twitter about how Jenson had a new rear wing and he did not, this from the same guy who the day before said he would never obey team orders.  I guess that contract is not signed yet.




Big fail for Mercedes and Red Bull. Herr Marko will not be a happy camper with Vettel qualifying 11th but starting 10th with Webber's gearbox change penalty moving him from 7th to 12th. Mercedes had Rosberg not go past Q1 and Schumacher starting his 300th GP in P13.

Massa did himself no favors qualifying 14th, seven spots behind Alonso who will move from P6 to P5 because of a penalty Maldonado received for blocking Nico Hulkenberg in Q2.

Pos  Driver              Car                   Time       Gap
 1.  Jenson Button       McLaren-Mercedes      1m47.573s
 2.  Kamui Kobayashi     Sauber-Ferrari        1m47.871s  + 0.298s
 3.  Pastor Maldonado    Williams-Renault      1m47.893s  + 0.320s
 4.  Kimi Raikkonen      Lotus-Renault         1m48.205s  + 0.632s
 5.  Sergio Perez        Sauber-Ferrari        1m48.219s  + 0.646s
 6.  Fernando Alonso     Ferrari               1m48.313s  + 0.740s
 7.  Mark Webber         Red Bull-Renault      1m48.392s  + 0.819s***
 8.  Lewis Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      1m48.394s  + 0.821s
 9.  Romain Grosjean     Lotus-Renault         1m48.538s  + 0.965s
10.  Paul di Resta       Force India-Mercedes  1m48.890s  + 1.317s
Q2 cut-off time: 1m48.993s                                Gap *
11.  Sebastian Vettel    Red Bull-Renault      1m49.722s  + 0.472s
12.  Nico Hulkenberg     Force India-Mercedes  1m49.362s  + 0.112s
13.  Michael Schumacher  Mercedes              1m49.742s  + 0.492s
14.  Felipe Massa        Ferrari               1m49.588s  + 0.338s
15.  Jean-Eric Vergne    Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m49.763s  + 0.513s
16.  Daniel Ricciardo    Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1m49.572s  + 0.322s
17.  Bruno Senna         Williams-Renault      1m49.958s  + 0.708s
Q1 cut-off time: 1m50.126s                                Gap **
18.  Nico Rosberg        Mercedes              1m50.181s  + 1.188s***
19.  Heikki Kovalainen   Caterham-Renault      1m51.739s  + 2.746s
20.  Vitaly Petrov       Caterham-Renault      1m51.967s  + 2.974s
21.  Timo Glock          Marussia-Cosworth     1m52.336s  + 3.343s
22.  Pedro de la Rosa    HRT-Cosworth          1m53.030s  + 4.037s
23.  Charles Pic         Marussia-Cosworth     1m53.493s  + 4.500s
24.  Narain Karthikeyan  HRT-Cosworth          1m54.989s  + 5.996s

107 per cent time: 1m56.622s

* Gap to fastest in Q2
** Gap to fastest in Q3
*** Will take five-place penalty