Patronise F1

The rain stayed away for the qualifying session in Belgium, and Lewis Hamilton nosed ahead of the pack to grab his fifth pole position of the season, staying clear of title rival Felipe Massa, but the main talking point was the amount of fuel sloshing around in the back of his McLaren.

Hamilton's charge to pole, some three tenths of a second faster than Massa, came after a weekend of practice that has seen the Ferraris have the legs on the McLarens, but come qualifying, the balance of power was shifted. Have McLaren lucked into a set up, or have they just drained some fuel out?

Time will tell, but for now, they have the joy of seeing Hamilton beat Massa coupled with the slightly-less-important, and yet still somewhat relevent, joy of Heikki Kovalainen grabbing third place ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, who endured another singularly oafish afternoon which once again will find himself out of position on tomorrow's grid, and with a lot of work to do to stay in the championship fight.

Best of the rest behind the marauding bunch of drivers with good cars was, somewhat shockingly, Nick "Ickle" Heidfeld for BMW Sauber, who seems to react far better to the stick than the carrot, and followed up his session-topping performance in the morning practice session to take 5th place, as he seeks to do enough to justify a race seat with the team next year. He will start alongside Fernando Alonso's Renault, who had a quietly impressive time of things.

Also impressing, but possibly also Hamilton-esque in his fuel load, was Mark Webber, who ended 7th after scraping into the final session by the skin of his pearly whites, ahead of a disappointing Robert Kubica in his BMW Sauber. Both Toro Rossos made it through to the final session, but failed to do much once they were there, and Bourdais and Vettel ended 9th and 10th, but they may still fancy their chances for a few points tomorrow.

Before the final session, the rest of qualifying was as hectic as usual. Hamilton was the early pace setter in Q1, as the Ferraris began slowly, but in a busy last few moments, Sebastien Bourdais pulled a lap out of nowhere to go quickest, eliciting joyous French screams down the radio.

At the back, a brave effort from Adrian Sutil to lug his Force India into Q2 came to nothing, as he dropped from 14th to 18th late on, with Mark Webber and Timo Glock just pipping the German into the second session. Sutil was joined by his team mate Fisichella, Kazuki Nakajima in the Williams and the pair of useless Hondas also dropping out after the opening 20 minutes.

In the second session, Heikki Kovalainen set the early pace, as the drivers hit the track early with a hint of rain in the air. In the end though, the moisture didn't arrive, and the drama at the end of the session saw both Toyotas, Nelson Piquet Jr, David Coulthard and a lackadaisical Nico Rosberg drop out, with Mark Webber again managing to put in a lap when it mattered to elevate his RBR car into the next session.

The final part of qualifying became a straight scrap between Hamilton and Massa for the pole. The McLaren man set an early quick one to take P1, after Massa made a mess of the Bus Stop on his first run, leaving the Brazilian on the back foot. After a quick change of tyres, the Ferrari man grabbed top spot back from the Brit, but Hamilton was able to respond, and reassert his authority at the last, just as Kovalainen pipped Kimi for 3rd.

So Hamilton takes the advantage into the race, but Ferrari and Massa must still feel pretty confident. Massa has been nailing his starts so far this year, and should Hamilton be as light as seems he is, then Massa must still be favourite to take the win tomorrow.

* - Eliminated in the second session
** - Eliminated in the first session