Screaming Skull
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There was no clear favourite for the Pole position in the qualifying session of the Belgian Grand Prix. The session was open for all drivers to cash on and the dominant duo from the Brawn GP had much to prove while the Red Bulls were left with much more to achieve to materialise a foothold in the Championship standings.
Q1
The 20-minute session began with Giancarlo Fisichella posting the first timed lap in his Force India. Soon the Toyotas had occupied the top spots in the timesheet and once again, Adrian Sutil was on a flier of a lap. It looked like the German was displaying his new-found speed and stayed in the top six even 8 minutes into the session.
In a shocker of a lap, Sutil had set the quickest lap on track by the first half of Q1 but was soon outpaced by Nick Heidfeld and Rubens Barrichello. Kimi Raikkonen in the meanwhile was on a hot lap and so was Jarno Trulli who set the fastest time only three minutes to the end of the session.
A fantastic performance from the Force Indias saw Fisichella take P1 by the end of Q1 while Sutil took P4. Jarno Trulli and Barrichello were in P2 and P3 respectively.
Drivers relegated after the first leg were Sebastien Buemi, Jaime Alguersuari, Kazuki Nakajima, Romain Grosjean and Luca Badoer.
Q2
Robert Kubica was the first man out during the second leg of qualifying. Almost every car had made it to the top during this 15-minute run but Jarno Trulli and Mark Webber looked fixed in P1 and P2 respectively for a while and Kubica was well poised in the third place.
Again Fisichella stormed into P1 and it would have been a thrilling sight for Vijay Mallya and the rest of the Force India team. Although Sutil failed to cut through into Q2, his teammate was in a commanding fourth place.
It was Trulli, Robert Kubica and Sebastian Vettel in the top order after Q2 and the drivers who failed to make it into Q3 were Sutil, Hamilton, Alonso, Button and Kovalainen.
Q3
The final 10-minute run would decide who would take away the most coveted position on the grid on Sunday and the good news for the ten drivers in Q3 was that there was no Hamilton, Button or Alonso to spoil their party.
Raikkonen marked the start of the session with the first timed lap of 1:47.218 on the charts. Vettel and Kubica were seen driving into the pit lane only five minutes into the session for a tyre change.
Rosberg and Heidfeld were fighting for the second position even as Barrichello was closing in from P4. But it was Fisichella who took Pole for the Belgian Grand Prix while Trulli and Heidfeld were in P2 and P3 respectively.
It was the first time since the 2006 Malaysian Grand Prix that the Italian driver from Force India took Pole and it was the very first for the team.
The Belgian Grand Prix just got more interesting and could we see a first win for the Indian team? Only Sunday will tell what lies in store so stay tuned to catch all the action.
Fisichella wins 4th Pole after 3 years | News | F1 Pulse
