Rosberg takes pole position for Belgian GP

In total, he got a massive 55-place demotion, sending him to last place in the 22-car race.

“It’s been a vacation weekend”, joked Hamilton who has focused his attention this weekend on race pace rather than flat-out qualifying blasts.

He’ll be back to the serious business on Sunday.

Instead, he came away still trailing Hamilton by nine points after the reigning triple world champion took full advantage of collisions involving his rivals, race disruptions and some spectacular overtaking, to finish a shock third. This, on a long and difficult seven-kilometer (four-mile) track where the unexpectedly high heat is causing havoc with tires pumped up to rock-hard pressure. There’s some blistering and some things happening with the tyres, which you can’t quite predict.

Max Verstappen wrote his name into Formula 1’s record books on Saturday as he became the youngest driver to qualify on the front row of the grid.

“It really wasn’t so easy coming into qualifying”, said Rosberg.

Saturday’s pole was the 28th of Rosberg’s career. Daniel Ricciardo, in the second Red Bull, was sixth.

But with 20,000 Dutch fans here, the 18-year-old driver will be especially keen to get out on track. “To be so close to Nico on a track with long straights, we can be very pleased with that”.

After becoming the youngest victor of an F1 race with a brilliant victory in Spain this season, Verstappen is the youngest driver to qualify on the front row of the grid.

Verstappen’s thoughts on the subject: “It’s great to break a record, but I want to break other records”.

The previous record for the youngest front row starter belonged to Ricardo Rodríguez, who set it a the 1961 Italian Grand Prix.

Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen was third, just 0.166 seconds adrift of Rosberg’s benchmark.

German driver Nico Hulkenberg was a season’s best fourth ahead of Mexican Sergio Perez and Vettel, while Alonso was seventh, Raikkonen ninth and Verstappen 11th. “Lost it all again, the traction, the grip”.

“For me, the soft was a little bit of a safer option – and I think that’s why we have gone for that”.

He has illustrious company at the back too, with McLaren’s Fernando Alonso garnering (at least) 35 penalty places, and although he’s unlikely to climb as far through the field as we expect Hamilton to, the fact Button starts in the top ten in his McLaren shows the Alonso should make progress through the race.