By Joe Watson
Lewis Hamilton snatched pole position off Championship leader Sebastian Vettel in a thrilling finish to qualifying in Spa.
The Mercedes driver will start at the front of the grid for the forth-consecutive race.
Vettel was set to be pack leader only to be denied by Hamilton who was the last car over the line, with the German 0.188s slower than Hamilton.
Vettel’s team-mate Mark Webber will start in third place in front of Nico Rosberg.
For a short time it looked as though fellow Brit Paul Di Resta would be locked in on the pole position – he was the fastest car on the circuit for a while with intermediate tyres as the rain lashed down.
He could only watch as the rain eased in the final minute to enable Mercedes and Redbull to register quicker times in their final laps pushing the Scot back to fifth, but he has equalled his best starting position, and is quickly rising up the ranks this season.
Last year’s Q3 and race winner Jenson Button will start in sixth following a modest qualifying session.
Echoing his previous achievements on the Spa circuit will be an optimistic task for the Brit as Redbull and Mercedes look the sharper cars, as they have done all season.
Button can draw positives from qualifying as it was an improvement from his 13th place grid start in Hungary four weeks ago.
Max Chilton managed to climb out of Q1 by a tenth of a second however he finished rock bottom of Q2 behind team-mate Jules Bianchi in 15th.