Lewis Hamilton secured the 11th pole position of his Formula One career ahead of tomorrow's Belgian Grand Prix. The world championship leader produced a stunning display around the Spa-Francorchamps circuit to leave Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen, his title rivals, in his wake. Hamilton clinched top spot on the grid with a lap of 1min 47.338sec for his fifth pole of the year, with Massa on the front row, but more than 0.3secs down.

On a dry circuit it was all too easy for Hamilton, who holds a six-point cushion in the drivers' standings over Massa in his Ferrari. Heikki Kovalainen will start third for McLaren, with Raikkonen fourth, the Finn out-qualified for the ninth time in 13 races by his Ferrari team-mate this season.

In giving McLaren their tenth pole at Spa, a smiling Hamilton said: "Today has been a great day. I was happy with all three laps in qualifying. It's always very satisfying when you go out, come in, and watch everybody else do their laps.

"Today the team made no mistakes, and I made no mistakes. Coming from Valencia [the European Grand Prix a fortnight ago] I knew we had work to do. But I feel better than ever. As you can see I'm stoked."

Massa indicated that he did all he could to claim pole. "I did a great lap," the Brazilian said. "Sometimes you do a great lap and you are still missing something. It wasn't enough, but the race is long. "Starting from the front row is very important, and let's hope we have a strong race tomorrow. We need to do everything we can to make sure we have strong pace."

Like Hamilton, Kovalainen was happy enough with his performance. "It's been a pretty good weekend all the way through, with no big problems with the car," he said. "All three sessions in qualifying were comfortable for me. There were no big problems."

Behind the leading quartet comes Nick Heidfeld in his BMW Sauber, who beat Robert Kubica, his team-mate, for only the second time this year - the Pole will start eighth.

Fernando Alonso joins Heidfeld on the third row of the grid in sixth in his Renault, with Mark Webber seventh for Red Bull. Sebastien Bourdais, the four-times ChampCar champion who is in danger of losing his race seat at Toro Rosso for next season, will start a F1 career-high of ninth, with team-mate Sebastian Vettel tenth.

For only the third time this year, neither Toyota made it into the top 10, with Jarno Trulli eleventh on the grid and team-mate Timo Glock thirteenth. Renault's Nelson Piquet, who has been out-qualified by Alonso at every race this year, is twelfth, with David Coulthard fourteenth for Red Bull and Nico Rosberg fifteenth in his Williams.

At the end of the first qualifying period, in which Bourdais was remarkably fastest, Honda's dismal weekend continued as neither of their drivers reached the second period for the fourth time this season. Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button, who missed all of the final practice session today due to a suspected fuel pressure problem, will start sixteenth and seventeenth respectively.

For the thirteenth successive race, Force India fell short of their target of making Q2 as Adrian Sutil will start eighteenth and Giancarlo Fisichella 20th. Surprisingly sandwiching the pair is Williams's Kazuki Nakajima who is ninteenth on the grid, his worst performance since Malaysia this year.

Final qualifying positions

1. Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren 1min 47.338secs
2. Felipe Massa (Br) Ferrari 1:47.678
3. Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren 1:47.815
4. Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 1:47.992
5. Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 1:48.315
6. Fernando Alonso (Sp) Renault 1:48.504
7. Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull 1:48.736
8. Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 1:48.763
9. Sebastien Bourdais (Fr) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:48.951
10. Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:50.319
11. Jarno Trulli (It) Toyota 1:46.949
12. Nelson Piquet Jr. (Br) Renault 1:46.965
13. Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota 1:46.995
14. David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull 1:47.018
15. Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams 1:47.429
16. Rubens Barrichello (Br) Honda 1:48.153
17. Jenson Button (GB) Honda 1:48.211
18. Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India 1:48.226
19. Kazuki Nakajima (Jap) Williams 1:48.268
20. Giancarlo Fisichella (It) Force India 1:48.447.