French Seb has been in fine form all weekend and even saw his name at the top of the F1 time sheet for the first time, when he was quickest of all in Q1. Wife Claire was on hand to snap a quick photo of the TV screen on her phone to record the moment. Having been the quickest of the two Toros, he was given the more aggressive strategy for Q3, with German Seb running with more fuel and therefore opting to only do one timed lap in the final session. The fantastic Spa track can often throw up unusual situations in the race, be it wet or dry and so the team has covered all bases by running the cars on different strategies. In simple terms, Bourdais will be making his first pit stop earlier than Vettel. At the moment, the forecast for Sunday is that we will have a dry Belgian Grand Prix, but if you are given a job forecasting the weather in the Ardennes, it means you have done something very bad, as it’s a completely impossible task.

All three title contenders are on the two front rows, with championship leader Lewis Hamilton putting his McLaren on pole, second placed Felipe Massa starts alongside him in the Ferrari, while third in the classification, Kimi Raikkonen is fourth, separated from the two men he needs to beat, by the other McLaren of Heikki Kovalainen. Nick Heidfeld was fifth quickest for BMW Sauber, while Fernando Alonso rounds off the top six for Renault.

Sébastien Bourdais (STR3-04)
“A qualifying session when I can get out of the car and say that I drove well and that the team, as usual did a good job. The car worked well even if we couldn’t mix it too much with those ahead of us. But let’s see what strategies the others are on in terms of fuel loads tomorrow. A couple of tenths is all that separated us from sixth or seventh. It’s beginning to come together and it’s been a good weekend so far. I feel this track and its corners suit me better. It was nice to see my name at the top of a time sheet in Q1. It’s been a long time!”
Third Practice Session: Best lap 1.49.256, pos. 14th, 19 laps
Qualifying Session: Best lap 1.48.951, Pos. 9th

Sebastian Vettel (STR3-03)
“I’m quite happy and we can be satisfied to get both cars in Q3, which we did not expect at this track. It was a strong qualifying performance. I was struggling a bit on those sections where the driver doesn’t have to do much. I could not find the pace my teammate had. I messed up my last run a bit but it didn’t affect the result in the end. I think we have a good strategy for both cars so let’s see what happens. At the moment, I’m starting on the dirty side of the track but if it rains for the race it becomes the clean side.”
Third Practice Session: Best lap 1.48.768, pos. 6th, 16 laps
Qualifying Session: Best lap 1.50.319, pos. 10th

Giorgio Ascanelli: “Better than expected, as I’d predicted tenth and thirteenth. It is the second race in a row that we get both cars into Q3 and they have run reliably. Clearly our guys are on two different strategies, so Vettel didn’t get the full potential out of the car as he is clearly heavier and he didn’t have the benefit of a first sighting run in Q3. Anything can happen at this track and for the race we wanted to have our cars positioned differently: the fastest driver and today that was Bourdais, gets the fastest strategy in Q3.