Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen has taken pole position for the Belgian GP, ahead of team-mate Felipe Massa.
Ferrari beat McLaren to front row at the Belgian GP
Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen has taken pole position for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix, ahead of team-mate Felipe Massa.
Just six days after McLaren-Mercedes scored a one-two victory at the Italian Grand Prix, and only 48 hours after the Woking team were fined $100 million and stripped of their constructors' championship points for spying on their biggest rivals, Ferrari fought back at Spa-Francorchamps.
Raikkonen lapped the 4.33-mile circuit in a time of one minute 45.994 seconds to edge out Massa - the Brazilian only seventeen thousandths of a second slower.
McLaren third and fourth
Meanwhile, McLaren will line up on the second row, with world champion Fernando Alonso overcoming a spin on his first 'flying' lap of the final session to line up third ahead of championship leader Lewis Hamilton.
BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica set the fifth fastest time but, having needed a new engine ahead of qualifying, the Pole will now start from 14th place.
Kubica would have started 15th but will start one place higher after Renault's Giancarlo Fisichella, who had qualified tenth, was similarly penalised.
Williams driver Nico Rosberg is thus promoted to fifth, ahead of Kubica's team-mate Nick Heidfeld and Red Bull's Mark Webber.
Toyota's Jarno Trulli qualified eighth, with Renault's Heikki Kovalainen and Trulli's team-mate Ralf Schumacher completing the top 10.
David Coulthard qualified 11th for Red Bull, one place ahead of Honda's Jenson Button, with Super Aguri's Anthony Davidson 21st on the grid.
Closing the gap
With Thursday's verdict in Paris all-but guaranteeing Ferrari the constructors' title, Raikkonen and Massa are ideally going to need another one-two of the kind they produced last month in Turkey to hand themselves the best chance of closing the gap in the drivers' championship.
But despite Ferrari securing the front row in Belgium, there is very little to choose between themselves and McLaren in terms of outright pace.
With Massa only just losing out to Raikkonen in the third session, Alonso in turn qualified just eight hundredths behind the second Ferrari, with Hamilton three tenths further back.
And during qualifying's second session - which sees cars setting times when lowest on fuel - Raikkonen's best of 1:45.070s was only six hundredths quicker than Hamilton.
With four races, including Sunday's, remaining, Raikkonen and Massa respectively stand 18 and 23 points behind Hamilton, with Alonso only three points behind the English rookie.
Belgian Grand Prix, qualifying: 1 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1min 45.994secs, 2 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 1:46.011, 3 Fernando Alonso (Spa) McLaren 1:46.091, 4 Lewis Hamilton (Gbr) McLaren 1:46.406, 5 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams 1:47.334, 6 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:47.409, 7 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:47.524, 8 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 1:47.798, 9 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Renault 1:48.505, 10 Ralf Schumacher (Ger) Toyota 1:46.618, 11 David Coulthard (Gbr) Red Bull 1:46.800, 12 Jenson Button (Gbr) Honda 1:46.955, 13 Vitantonio Liuzzi (Ita) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:47.115, 14 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 1:46.996, 15 Alexander Wurz (Aut) Williams 1:47.394, 16 Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:47.581, 17 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Honda 1:47.954, 18 Takuma Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri 1:47.980, 19 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Spyker 1:48.044, 20 Anthony Davidson (Gbr) Super Aguri 1:48.199, 21 Sakon Yamamoto (Jpn) Spyker 1:49.577, 22 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Renault 1:46.603
