Mark Webber celebrated his birthday weekend in style by claiming pole position for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix.
The Championship leader, who turned 34 on Friday, not only survived but thrived in the ever-changing weather conditions at Spa, clocking a 1:45.778 to take pole position.
Lewis Hamilton will line up second on the grid, missing out on the coveted grid slot by 0.085s in what was a much-improved qualifying session for the McLaren team.
Robert Kubica was another driver relishing the conditions as he put his Renault into third place ahead of Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button.
Felipe Massa was the best-placed Ferrari driver in sixth place, qualifying ahead of Rubens Barrichello and Adrian Sutil.
Qualifying 1
The track temperature at Spa was just 23C with an ambient of 16C and as ever in the Ardennes Forest, rain was not far away. The track was damp and drying, something that caught Vitaly Petrov out on his outlap when he put his rear wheels on the still-damp exit kerb of the 'Liege' turn (also known as the Corner with No Name). The Renault spun across the road and nerfed the barriers bringing his qualifying session and the whole Q1 session to an abrupt stop with18.02 left to run.
In the intervening minutes the rain clouds gathered and there was a big scramble to get out of the pitlane when the session was green-flagged a few minutes later. Only Sebastian Vettel chose to come out on his own slightly behind the other drivers. Rain started to fall heavily as a lot of the cars in the field tried to get ahead of the two Virgin cars which had emerged very close to the front of the queue at the end of the pitlane. Michael Schumacher tried to elbow his way ahead of Jarno Trulli down to Eau Rouge, but the Lotus driver was having none of it.
In the middle of the first timed lap Lucas diGrassi lost control of his Virgin car in front of Trulli, Sutil and Schumacher, while ahead Robert Kubica and a Sauber took to the grass. It was a frantic opening lap to the session with times varying by eight or nine seconds and everyone continuing on for more laps to see if the rain would get worse or better.
Sebastian Vettel's delayed start hadn't done him any good and he ended up in P17 after his first timed lap of 2:05. With the rain getting heavier at about 12 minutes remaining, everyone then returned to the pits to see if they could go faster on Intermediate tyres. Lewis Hamilton's P1 time of 1:56.706 was probably not achievable on Intermediates, but they could probably be used to set times of around the two-minute mark - Button having used them in final practice to set a 2:02.
At this stage of the session Virgin's Timo Glock was in a dizzying P10 and Sakon Yamamoto P13 for HRT. Had the rain continued to fall it would have been a stunning result. As it was, the rain stopped just as soon as it started and Vettel was soon out on a set of Inters to post the P3 time.
This and Jarno's elevation to P12 pushed Adrian Sutil into the P18 dropzone and everyone bar the front-runners decided to go out on what was a rapidly drying track. The bottom of the timesheets had an unfamiliar look with five minutes to go:
17.Yamamoto, 18.Kubica, 19.de la Rosa, 20.Buemi, 21.Alguersuari, 22.Kovalainen, 23.DiGrassi, 24.Petrov
Robert Kubica extricated himself by posting the P1 time, but as times fell both Saubers contrived to slip off the road almost at once - Kobayashi into the gravel at Turn 8 and then de la Rosa at the Fagne chicane.
Everyone had taken to the circuit in the dying minutes apart from the two McLaren drivers who saved a set of tyres. When the chequered flag came down it was the three old team drivers who had left the road, mixed in with the new teams in the bottom seven:
18. Trulli
19.Kobayashi
20.Senna
21.Yamamoto
22.de la Rosa
23.diGrassi
24.Petrov.
Qualifying 2
Ever since Malaysia, where they were caught out by coming out too late in the session, Mclaren have been keen to get out early when there is any chance of rain. And so it was no surprise to see Lewis Hamilton post an early P1 with a 1:50.714 which he subsequently lowered to 1:49.853 a lap later.
With the track still drying, Robert Kubica lowered it to 1:49.718, an on-form Michael Schumacher to 1:49.028 and then Sebastian Vettel reduced it to 1:48.710. Felipe Massa scared his Ferrari mechanics by spinning into the gravel at Rivages, but managed to keep his car going and escape the other side.
With five minutes to run of the session, the danger positions were: 8.Massa, 9.Hulkenberg, 10.Sutil, 11.Rosberg, 12.Barrichello, 13.Button, 14.Buemi, 15.Glock, 16.Liuzzi, 17.Kovalainen.
Jenson Button had gone out early and not made the most of his soft tyres and set out on a multi-lap run before most had started their final run. He showed how much the track was continuing to improve with a 1:47.421 to take P1. Not to be outdone, team-mate Lewis Hamilton came out and battered P1 down into 1:46.441 and then 1:46.211 a whole second quicker than Kubica in P3.
The rest of the field succeeded in lowering their times as positions pinballed in and out of the Top 10. Alonso jumped to P3, Massa made himself safe in P3, Sutil grabbed P5, Robert Kubica took P2, Webber could only manage P7, Schumacher jumped to P7 from P11, Button jumped back to P2. In the dying seconds of the session, both Williams broke into the top 10 pushing Michael Schumacher back to P11 again. Traffic on his final flying lap prevented him from making it into Q3 which he looked easily capable of doing.
So out went:
11.Schumacher
12.Rosberg
13.Alguersuari
14.Liuzzi
15.Buemi
16.Kovalainen
17.Glock
With Schumacher facing a 10-place grid drop and Rosberg a 5-place, Michael had the consolation of beating his team-mate. If there is rain tomorrow, he still has all the skills necessary to get a good points finish.
Qualifying 3
Lewis Hamilton made sure he was in pole position at the end of the pitlane at least, when Q3 started. The slightly smoking McLaren led away proceedings with Ferraris sandwiched in between the two Mclarens.
All of the front four's times were underwhelming, and although Lewis Hamilton took P1 with a 1:46.203, Robert Kubica produced a fantastic lap to take P1 with a 1:46.100 and then Mark Webber eclipsed that with a 1:45.778.
There has been a lot of moaning and spin from Red Bull saying that the Renault engine is underpowered, but after the first runs, there were Renault engines in the first three cars on what is regarded as a power-crucial circuit. The order after the first runs was. 1.Webber, 2.Kubica, 3.Vettel, 4.Hamilton, 5.Massa, 6.Button, 7.Hulkenberg, 8.Barrichello, 9.Alonso and with Sutil electing to take only one run.
Alonso had made a costly error in the middle sector of his lap, but surely he and Button could do better next time round...? Just as the cars were coming in to fit new tyres for their outlap the rain started to fall near La Source hairpin. The rest of the track was dry but the first sector would be wet.
Massa was the first to set off on his second flying lap and after running wide onto the grass after Les Coombes, decided to abort his lap and cruise home, behind him Fernando Alonso lost 0.8 in the first sector because of the rain. Across the line he came but his time was not good enough to haul himself out of P10 (Sutil having gone quicker on his one run).
Vettel couldn't improve either, despite setting the fastest middle sector of anyone, Kubica didn't emerge again because of a problem on his in-lap, so it was up to the late-charging McLarens to change the order. Despite the worse conditions Hamilton improved his time to grab a front-row spot alongside Webber and Button passed Massa to finish in P5.
Had both Mclarens been able to have a dry Sector 1 then it might have been a different grid, but with Ferrari and Mclaren both fast in Sector 1, the run up to Les Coombes they will have the opportunity to shake up the order in the race tomorrow. Unlike so many grand prix, pole position rarely wins in Belgium and the weather could well play the decisive hand in the race tomorrow.
FH
Times
01 Mark Webber RBR-Renault 1:45.778
02 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:45.863
03 Robert Kubica Renault 1:46.100
04 Sebastian Vettel RBR-Renault 1:46.127
05 Jenson Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:46.206
06 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:46.314
07 Rubens Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:46.602
08 Adrian Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:46.659
09 Nico Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:47.053
10 Fernando Alonso Ferrari 1:47.441
11 Michael Schumacher Mercedes GP 1:47.874
12 Nico Rosberg Mercedes GP 1:47.885
13 Jaime Alguersuari STR-Ferrari 1:48.267
14 Vitantonio Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:48.680
15 Sebastien Buemi STR-Ferrari 1:49.209
16 Heikki Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:50.980
17 Timo Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:52.049
18 Jarno Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 2:01.491
19 Kamui Kobayashi BMW Sauber-Ferrari 2:02.284
20 Bruno Senna HRT-Cosworth 2:03.612
21 Sakon Yamamoto HRT-Cosworth 2:03.941
22 Pedro de la Rosa BMW Sauber-Ferrari 2:05.294
23 Lucas di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 2:18.754
24 Vitaly Petrov Renault No time
