Spa-Francorchamps, 28 August – If you had to pick a circuit at which to have a less than satisfactory qualifying session, then Spa would definitely be one of them, partly because this fantastic track provides real overtaking opportunities and also because the weather gods are unlikely to let the race pass without wishing to have their say at some point. The story of today’s three qualifying sessions is a tale of chaos and intermittent rain, with Felipe Massa securing a spot on Row 3 of the grid in sixth place and Fernando Alonso will start from Row 5 in tenth spot.

At the start of Q1, nearly all the cars were already lined up in pit lane waiting for the red light to change to green, in order to put in a “safe” lap time as soon as possible, because rain was due to arrive shortly. But before a single car had completed a flying lap, Petrov spun his Renault into the barriers which brought out the red flag. At the restart, when indeed the rain had arrived, another queue formed for the lights, this time with the majority of cars running intermediate rain tyres. Before the end of Q2, the track was drying again, which prompted another rush for the pits to go out on slicks. The final top ten shoot-out began in the dry: Felipe put in a competitive time on his first run, but his second one coincided with the rain returning. This was also the case for Fernando, but because the Spaniard only had one set of new softs, he had not got a first run in the bank and his second one was naturally not going to be as competitive as it took place on a damp track.

While there were plenty of surprises this afternoon, the pole position result maintained what is becoming a 2010 tradition, as Mark Webber recorded Red Bull’s twelfth pole in thirteen Grands Prix. The Australian shares the front row for tomorrow’s 44 lap race, with Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren, while the second row features the Renault of Robert Kubica in third and the other Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel fourth. Felipe shares the third row with Jenson Button in the McLaren, while between the two F10s are Barrichello, Sutil and Hulkenberg. Tomorrow’s 44 lap race could well be affected by changeable weather, but asking for an accurate forecast more than an hour or so before the start is a pointless question. The key, as always at Spa, will be to react quickly and in the right way to whatever the elements have in store.