Hamilton beats Massa to Spa pole position

Lewis Hamilton Spa 2008

Championship leader Lewis Hamilton scored his eleventh career pole position at the majestic Spa-Francorchamps circuit edging out his main title rival Felipe Massa in qualifying.

The McLaren driver set a lap time around the challenging 4.352-mile Belgian race circuit with one minute, 47.338 seconds. This was three tenths of a second quicker than Massa in the Ferrari. Their team-mates will line up directly behind with Heikki Kovalainen ahead of Kimi Raikkonen.

It was another disappointing performance from the reigning world champion. Kimi Raikkonen really needed a good result at Spa to kick-start his title campaign following a series of poor races. The Finn is a past winner of the Belgian Grand Prix – he won this event three times – but starting from fourth, Kimi will have a difficult task in achieving his fourth consecutive victory. He will need to display his race-winning pace on Sunday or else he will play the supporting role of Felipe Massa in the remaining Grands Prix.

BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld is another driver under pressure for results. The German had suffered the problem of not setting quick lap times compared to team-mate Robert Kubica in qualifying. Heidfeld seems to be having trouble in maintaining good tyre pressure during his timed runs. But he responded with a fine fifth position at Spa. Indeed his time of one minute, 48.315 seconds was better than Kubica, who could only manage eighth position with one minute, 48.763 seconds.

Double world champion Fernando Alonso will line up sixth for Renault. A great result for the Spaniard and he had a chance of a strong finish in Sunday’s Grand Prix. His ambition is to help the team finish fourth in the constructors’ standing by out-qualifying and out racing Toyota. With sixth position, Alonso has the opportunity to close the points gap.

Australian Mark Webber will start in seventh for Red Bull Racing, ahead of Kubica and the Toro Rossos of Sebastien Bourdais and Sebastian Vettel respectively. Bourdais even set the fastest time in Q1, which was a fantastic achievement for the Champ Car champion.

So yet again the two championship contenders are on the front row. Can Lewis Hamilton extend his lead in the drivers’ standings with race victory? Or will Felipe Massa score another decisive win for Ferrari? What about Raikkonen? This is Kimi’s final chance to win at his favourite circuit and he needs a good result if he wants to challenge for title honours this year.

In addition the weather on Sunday could prove tricky for the twenty Formula One drivers. Let’s hope the racing will be better than the previous Grand Prix at Valencia a fortnight ago.

Starting grid for the Belgian Grand Prix:

1. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:47.338
2. Massa Ferrari 1:47.678
3. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 1:47.815
4. Raikkonen Ferrari 1:47.992
5. Heidfeld BMW Sauber 1:48.315
6. Alonso Renault 1:48.504
7. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:48.736
8. Kubica BMW Sauber 1:48.763
9. Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:48.951
10. Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:50.319
11. Trulli Toyota 1:46.949
12. Piquet Renault 1:46.965
13. Glock Toyota 1:46.995
14. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:47.018
15. Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:47.429
16. Barrichello Honda 1:48.153
17. Button Honda 1:48.211
18. Sutil Force India-Ferrari 1:48.226
19. Nakajima Williams-Toyota 1:48.268
20. Fisichella Force India-Ferrari 1:48.447

One thought to “Hamilton beats Massa to Spa pole position”

  1. I shamefully managed to miss this. Alonso ended up doing rather poor, in the main race, he was holding off fourth position and then when the rain came in, it was game over. Poor Raiki he’s beginning to feel like the underdog rather than the current F1 world champion. With Massa licking his lips like a Cheshire cat its a funky ass season ^_^

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