Formula 1 German GP
Nico Rosberg gets pole at Hockenheim. Reuters

The 2014 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps is Sunday, August 24, at 7:30 am EDT. The Belgian Grand Prix will be shown on NBC this Sunday morning but for race fans who are enjoying a rack of ribs at the park this Memorial Day weekend, be sure to catch the live stream online by signing up for NBC Sports LiveExtra here.

The Belgian GP marks the fifth Mercedes-Benz F1 1-2 start of the season. This weekend, Nico Rosberg managed to deliver a lap just 0.2 seconds quicker than his teammate during wet qualifying. This is also Nico Rosberg's first career pole at Spa-Francorchamps.

“It's awesome [to get pole] at this track,” Rosberg said. “It's one of the most special tracks of the year, so to be in front here is great. We have a great car here, we're leading the way and it's so cool to see that. The team is doing a great job, just staying ahead and keeping that gap, so there's a really good chance for tomorrow. I need to get a good start and, from there, I'm really looking forward to it...”

For the fourth race in a row, Lewis Hamilton lost pole position to his teammate. According to the 2008 world champion, a front brake issue cost him siginficant time on the 4.3-mile circuit.

“I had a glazed front left brake so the car was pulling to the right so there was nothing I could do on the out lap to try and get rid of that,” Hamilton said. “So I was struggling under braking. I had to bring the braking point a little further back and I was losing massive amounts of [time] particularly out of Turn 1.”

“I'm not disappointed today, actually. If you look at previous years P2 was actually the best place to start here so I feel quite blessed that that's the case. I started on pole here last year and Sebastian flew past me down the top straight, so I think it gives you the most opportunity here at the start.

“I'm just happy to be up here. I was going in to qualifying not knowing if the car was going to make it through and I'm grateful for all the hard work that the team has put in to make sure that we have no problems. It's a great feeling to be back up here.”

Nontheless, both Mercedes cars are almost two second faster than the third car on the grid, Sebastian Vettel.

“Obviously, it would be nice to be further up, but the gap is quite big, so I think it was the best we could do today,” said Vettel. “It was very tricky in the wet, we knew that [with low downforce], but the reasoning behind that was fairly simple.

“We know that we're down on power, while Mercedes can run more wing level and have a very strong car this year. They have a lot of downforce and can still take that wing level onto the straights. If we do that, we're quite similar in the corners but, on the straights, we're a long way off the pace. In the wet, that probably hurt us a bit more but, hopefully, tomorrow, we'll be a bit closer in terms of race pace, and closer to them than in the last couple of races.”

The 2014 Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix is Sunday, August 24 at 7:30 am EDT. Be sure to catch the live stream online by signing up for NBC Sports LiveExtra here.

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