Lewis Hamilton took pole position by over 0.45s at Spa-Francorchamps as Mercedes dominated qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Mercedes team-mate Nico Rosberg had no answer for Hamilton's best time of 1:47.197 as the reigning world champion was in a league of his own through the fast corners of Spa's middle sector. On the final run Hamilton was half a second quicker than Rosberg in sector two alone and over the entire lap was well over a second faster than the next non-Mercedes driver Valtteri Bottas in third. Romain Grosjean did well to qualify his Lotus in fourth, but will drop to ninth when a grid penalty for a gearbox change is applied to the results. Sergio Perez will then be promoted to fourth and last year's race winner Daniel Ricciardo will start fifth.

Felipe Massa and Pastor Maldonado both beat Sebastian Vettel, who was ninth on the timesheets and will start eighth on the grid. Vettel failed to hook a lap up in the top-ten shootout in a disappointing session for Ferrari following its win in Hungary. Carlos Sainz rounded out the top ten in his Toro Rosso, but failed to improve on his Q2 time in Q3.

Nico Hulkenberg was the only Mercedes-powered driver not to make the top ten and dropped out in Q2 along with Red Bull's Daniil Kvyat, who had regularly been at the sharp end of the timesheets during practice. Marcus Ericcson was 13th fastest ahead of Kimi Raikkonen and Max Verstappen, who both failed to set times due to car issues. Raikkonen's Ferrari broke down with a loss of oil pressure coming out of Stavelot, leaving the Finn with another tricky race day ahead of him on Sunday. Verstappen will start from the penultimate row of the grid with just the McLarens behind him due to a penalty for an engine change earlier this weekend.

Felipe Nasr dropped out in Q1 along with the McLarens and Manors. Sauber took upgraded Ferrari engines on both cars this weekend and Nasr will be disappointed to have set a time over 0.4s off his team-mate Marcus Ericsson. McLaren's Honda engine upgrade also failed to deliver a step up the grid, with both cars over two seconds off the pace of Lewis Hamilton's best Q1 time. Jenson Button was 0.5s quicker than Fernando Alonso, who missed out on vital set-up time with a problem in final practice. However, the times are of little relevance as both McLarens will start from the back row after incurring grid penalties of 50 and 55 places for changing engine components.

8.Sebastian Vettel (Ferrari)Q31:48.825

*Were penalized. Via ESPN