Qualifying report
Belgian GP: Top 10 quotes after qualifying
Lewis Hamilton to start the 200th race of his career from pole position
Photo by: Sutton Images
| Cla | # | Driver | Chassis | Engine | Time | Gap | km/h |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 44 |  Lewis Hamilton |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 1'42.553 | 245.867 | |
| "I'm really happy and grateful. The past few weeks have been great and I've carried the positive energy from my holiday into this weekend. Until I crossed the line and got the pole I hadn't really realised that I had matched Michael's record. It's crazy to think that in 1996, when I was eleven years old, I came here to watch Michael - and now I've equalled his record. I'm honoured to be up there with him now and starting the second half of the season this strong is an amazing feeling. I have not really had any bad laps this weekend. But it's going to be tight tomorrow. Ferrari's race pace looked good yesterday, so I think it will be a lot closer tomorrow. The rundown to Turn 1 is short, but pole is still the best position to start from. I will try to make it work tomorrow." | |||||||
| 2 | 5 |  Sebastian Vettel |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 1'42.795 | 0.242 | 245.288 |
| “I had a very good feeling already in Q1. During Q2, the main task was to get through and then in Q3 I was just about ok with the first run, but struggling a bit. However, my last run was better. I am happy with today’s result. I think we achieved something that some people didn’t expect from us. The pace was very good and I am really looking forward to tomorrow. It will be a long race with a lot of laps and a long track where more or less everyone has had problems with the tires during the weekend. As for the extension of my contract with Ferrari, I am very happy for that. I love this team. Two years ago we said we wanted to get back on top and I think we are on the right road. We aren’t where we want to be yet, but we are striving for the top. I am very happy we keep working together. I want to achieve a lot with Ferrari and think it’s the same on the other side. And I want to keep racing in red!” | |||||||
| 3 | 77 |  Valtteri Bottas |
Mercedes | Mercedes | 1'43.094 | 0.541 | 244.576 |
| "First of all, congratulations to Lewis for his 68 poles, that's a mega achievement. Unfortunately, I didn't have the pace to fight for the pole today. I'm not sure about the reasons; I'm slightly confused as to why I haven't been able to get closer. We will need to look for a few more answers in the data. The balance in the car felt good, but I was lacking grip, so I was particularly struggling in the high-speed corners of sector two. I felt a lot more comfortable in the car with high fuel, so that's good for tomorrow. Driving the 2017 car around Spa is mega - it's so quick, I've never experienced anything like it. We are both starting in the top three, so as a team we will still try to achieve our target and that is a 1-2." | |||||||
| 4 | 7 | Kimi Raikkonen |
Ferrari | Ferrari | 1'43.270 | 0.717 | 244.159 |
| “It was a messy qualifying: all the way through the session I had some vibrations in the car that kept coming and going. It’s hard to know how much they affected the lap time, but for sure it did not help. It’s very disappointing because so far the weekend had gone very smoothly. I felt we had all the tools to do well, the car was good and we had the speed. In the last run I was off to a good start, but then I started struggling with the tire temperatures and made a mistake, got sideways at turn 9 and it was pretty much the end of it. Fourth position is not a disaster but it is far from what I wanted. It’s unfortunate, wrong time wrong place, but tomorrow is another day. It’s going to be quite tricky with the tires for everybody: hopefully we’ll have a straightforward race and make the right decisions.” | |||||||
| 5 | 33 |  Max Verstappen |
Red Bull | TAG | 1'43.380 | 0.827 | 243.900 |
| “I was really happy with my lap in Q3, it couldn’t have been better to be honest as I feel I put everything together and got the best performance out of the car possible. I think the lap felt better than P5, last year I was P2 and I think it felt just as good this year, but I’m happy with the result anyway and would say it was a perfect qualifying. I am positively surprised we are so close to Ferrari, Lewis was way ahead but in the race I think we can be closer so perhaps a good result is possible. Our strength is in sector 2 so we will work even harder there to improve a bit but in general the balance of the car was great and that allowed me to execute a very good Qualifying session. Although the car felt good today I still think we need a bit of luck to do something special tomorrow. For now it looks like it will be a dry race so let’s hope that changes overnight and I think then we can fight properly. On my fast laps I was concentrating too much but on my in lap I could see the orange crowd and smoke from all the fans, this is amazing to see. As I left the pit lane there was a guy on the fence in all orange waving me on, it’s awesome.” | |||||||
| 6 | 3 |  Daniel Ricciardo |
Red Bull | TAG | 1'43.863 | 1.310 | 242.765 |
| “We were a bit off in Q1 but I knew there was more time and then in Q2 we got closer to the pace that we needed. Unfortunately in Q3, when you really start to get everything out of it, we couldn’t get much more. I felt like if I pushed more in one part of the track it killed me in another part so I didn’t really feel we had the car to complete one lap at 100%. I just felt a little bit limited with the balance. But I’m going to be optimistic and say, if that’s the case maybe that means we have got a more consistent car for the race. If we’re not getting the peak out of the tyre maybe we can sustain a relatively good pace for longer than the others, so that’s what I’m betting on.” | |||||||
| 7 | 27 | Nico Hulkenberg |
Renault | Renault | 1'44.982 | 2.429 | 240.178 |
| “I’m very pleased with qualifying as I haven’t been able to get the set-up exactly where I wanted it, yet I could still get a P7 time when it mattered. We were still working on set-up today as I haven’t been able to find that sweet spot where everything’s working at its best. I still don’t think we found the best solution, yet I was very positively surprised that we could squeeze a P7 out of it. It’s a good effort from the team; tomorrow’s going to be a full race. It’ll be head down and pedal hard.” | |||||||
| 8 | 11 |  Sergio Perez |
Force India | Mercedes | 1'45.244 | 2.691 | 239.580 |
| “I am a bit disappointed with my lap in Q3. I was close to Raikkonen in sector one, but when he aborted his lap in sector two I ended up being too close to him. As a result, I lost of a lot of aerodynamic load and that cost me a couple of tenths. I believe we had the pace to be ahead of the Renault today, but I still think we are in a good position for tomorrow. Spa is a place where anything can happen so it will be important to stay out of trouble and take the opportunities that come our way. The first lap can be really messy: not just in turn one but also at Les Combes, when the pack bunches up again. I think we can be strong tomorrow and I really hope we can get the result that the team deserves.” | |||||||
| 9 | 31 |  Esteban Ocon |
Force India | Mercedes | 1'45.369 | 2.816 | 239.296 |
| “I think a better result was possible today. From Q2 onwards I started to lose some grip and we need to analyse and understand what happened. I was three tenths faster on my Q2 lap compared to Q3 so we didn’t maximise things and I’m not totally satisfied. However, I feel confident about the race. The car is working well and we have a quick race car, especially in the first and final sectors. That will help us tomorrow. It’s a track that encourages good racing and I think there will be opportunities tomorrow and some close battles.” | |||||||
| 10 | 30 | Jolyon Palmer |
Renault | Renault | 1'44.685 | 2.132 | |
| “I’ve been in a really good place with the RS17 all weekend, easily the best all year. I’ve had strong confidence in the car, it’s felt really well balanced and we haven’t had to make many changes, so this bodes well for the future. We had a gearbox problem in Q3, which came after a couple of issues with a clutch sensor, so despite all that it’s a positive that we made it into the top ten for qualifying. Without the Q3 issue, P7 was definitely on the cards with the pace we’d shown. I’m hoping for points tomorrow.” | |||||||
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