Mark Webber In Pole Position For Belgian Grand Prix

Mark Webber was over the moon after snatching pole position for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, but did admit that timing of his best qualifying lap was crucial.

It was the 34-year-old's 5th pole of the season for Red Bull, who have taken pole at all but one race this year. Webber, who snatched back the lead in the driver's championship from McLaren driver Lewis Hamilton after winning the Hungarian Grand Prix, nipped the Pommie, who starts in 2nd place, by less than a 10th of a second. Webber clocked a time of 1min 45.788sec on his 1st lap in Q3 and admitted that the timing was vital as some timely rain prevented his rivals from matching his time.

Webber was listed with 2.75 odds of winning the 2010 Formula 1 World Championship at Nordicbet.com, just shy of Lewis Hamilton at 2.50.

Remember the old saying, the more I win the luckier I get.

"We knew the first lap was going to be pretty important because round here it is so unpredictable - the weather has been unique, even for Spa. It has been so on and off," the Aussie said. "So to have a pretty clean qualifying was very important. The first lap I was happy with, but you never know in this company if it is enough or not. It was nice to be on pole halfway through, but the weather made it more difficult to improve on our second attempt."

Hamilton advised he was disappointed not to have bested Webber's time, but was delighted to be starting on the front row.

"It was quite a tricky session through the whole qualifying," he said. "I got out for my first lap, the first one out. Turn 14 was drying up but I was first one to get there and didn't know how much to push. It was a bit of a disappointing first lap, I wasn't able to hold the time out of the tyres. Then I got the opportunity on the second lap which was a good lap apart from Turn 1. That was wet and a little bit damp, I lost time there. But the rest of the track was dry and I was able to utilise the tyres and pull out the time. I think I was a tenth behind Mark, there was the potential there to be in front in P1, but to be P2 on front row is a good position for us."

Pole Robert Kubica will start in 3rd position for Renault ahead of German Sebastian Vettel in the 2nd (more controversial) Red Bull, while Brit Jenson Button of McLaren also made it into the top 5 spots. Ferrari driver Brazilian Felipe Massa was 6th fastest followed by Brazilian Rubens Barrichello of Williams. Force India's Adrian Sutil will start in 8th position ahead of fellow German Nico Hulkenberg of Williams and Ferrari driver Spaniard Fernando Alonso in 10th. Hulkenberg set the fastest time in the Q1 opening mini-session which saw rookie Russian Vitaly Petrov fail to set a time for Renault after spinning out on the exit of turn 9 on his opening lap. Sauber drivers Kamui Kobayashi and Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa joined Petrov on the casualty list after crashing out towards the end of the session. Despite not making it to Q2, Italian Jarno Trulli of Lotus will start in 16th position ahead of German Nico Rosberg who, despite finishing 12th fastest, has been given a 5 place grid penalty owing to a gearbox replacement.

Greg Tingle, Media Man International