Nico Rosberg was the more confident driver on an ever drying track as he scored his fourth pole in a row to shut out Lewis Hamilton at Spa.
From the very start of Q1 it was obvious that the speed Mercedes have in the dry translates directly to the wet as they pulled away immediately.
In that session many had difficulties finding temperature and confidence in the brakes, vital for getting the best lap at the twisty Spa circuit and that lack of confidence directly affected Nico Hulkenberg who finished 18th with only a Marussia, Sauber and the pair of Caterham’s behind.
Speaking of Caterham, Marcus Ericsson may need to up his qualifying performance soon – not only has he been repeatedly out-qualified by Kamui Kobayashi but he was also beaten by a second by Andre Lotterer in what is his first weekend in the car.
Into Q2 and Toro Rosso will be feeling very hard done by as they were only just edged out of the top ten shoot out by the McLarens and had to settle for 11th and 12th.
Finally in to Q3 and really if you looked away from the Mercedes duo of Rosberg and Hamilton you missed most of the excitement.
The very start of the session saw Rosberg take pole and even though Hamilton was desperately pushing to try and close the gap, small mistakes avoided by his German team mate saw him miss out by 0.228 seconds in conditions that seemed to phase him.
Just behind and more than two seconds away was Sebastian Vettel who will be hoping that the dramas that blighted his session on Friday don’t strike again on Sunday where he should be in with a fight for third place with the Ferrari of Fernando Alonso who qualified just behind.
Elsewhere in the top ten was both the Mclarens which seemed to have a good session, although Button was disappointed to only start 10th feeling as though he couldn’t push any harder on the intermediate tyres.
