Charles Leclerc scored his third pole position of the season at the Belgian Grand Prix beating team-mate Sebastian Vettel by over seven-tenths of a second in an all Ferrari front row.
Q1 saw a fire in the back of Robert Kubica’s Williams minutes after the green light, bringing out an early red flag and an end to his qualifying session.
There was a similar fire in Sergio Perez’s car in FP2 with the Spec-3 Mercedes power unit, indicating a similar issue for the Polish driver.
The red flag gave Mercedes extra time to work on Hamilton’s car after his crash in FP3, and by the time the session was back underway, Hamilton emerged from the garage to complete a lap time.
Meanwhile, Max Verstappen’s first lap was a slow lap after complaining with an issue with his Honda power unit, forcing him to return to the pits to resolve the issue.
He returned with just minutes to spare, and it seemed the issue was fixed as he was able to set the third fastest time behind the two Ferraris of Leclerc and Vettel.
Moments after Verstappen’s improved lap time, a second red flag was brought out after Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo came to a halt on the approach to Eau Rouge. With 43 seconds remaining, Q1 was brought to a close and caught out those who were unable to complete a second flying lap.
This meant that Gasly, Sainz, Kvyat, Russell and Kubica were all eliminated from Q1.
Q2 saw Leclerc going fastest again with a 1:42.938, six-tenths quicker than his Q1 time.
Vettel was second and just under a tenth behind Leclerc, whilst Hamilton was closing the gap to the Italian team by posting a 1:43.592, still almost half a second down. Bottas seemed to be unable to keep up with his team-mate with the gap between the two of them being around four-tenths of a second.
Elsewhere, Kimi Raikkonen looked impressive as his first lap was only eight thousands behind Verstappen, whilst Daniel Ricciardo was half a second behind the Finn.
Nico Hulkenberg’s first lap time saw him qualify 11th and half a second down on team-mate Ricciardo in the middle sector.
On his second attempt, Hulkenberg improved to finish seventh and safely into Q3 with his team-mate.
Giovinazzi did not compete in qualifying after his car broke down in Q1, so would start 15th.
Albon in the sister Red Bull was 2.4 seconds off the fastest lap, but it was unlikely he was aiming to advance into Q3 given he will be starting from the back of the grid, and left his Red Bull after setting his initial lap.
Grosjean, Norris and Stroll would also be eliminated in Q2.
Q3 saw drama on the initial outlaps as the top ten fought for track position and an opportunity to acquire the slipstream.
At one point, Hamilton had to pull to the right and almost go into the rear of Bottas just to move out of the way for Raikkonen, who was on his flying lap.
An intense first hot lap saw Leclerc taking provisional pole with Hamilton in second by over six-tenths of a second.
Vettel was eight-tenths down on his team-mate, with replays showing he lost the rear of the car going into La Source. Bottas was fourth ahead of Verstappen, who was a long way adrift from the top four.
On their second runs, Verstappen was the first car out with no slipstream after being told by his race engineer to go and set a lap. Hamilton was trying to stay behind Leclerc to acquire the slipstream, with Vettel behind them.
This was all in vain for Hamilton, however, as Leclerc still set the fastest time of 1:42.519, with team-mate Vettel seven-tenths behind him for the first Ferrari front row lock-out since Bahrain earlier in the season.
Vettel was not impressed, however, as he reported a mistake in the middle sector, as well as locking up in the final sector.
Hamilton and Bottas completed the second row, with the five-time world champion only 15 thousandths behind Vettel.
Verstappen qualified fifth, but over a second behind Leclerc, whilst Ricciardo, Hulkenberg, Raikkonen, Perez and Magnussen rounded out the top 10.
