Hakkinen heads McLaren walkover

The Finn was fastest from the moment he took to the track and responded to every challenge with another crushing lap.

David Coulthard briefly topped the times, only for his team-mate to retake the position just seconds later.

The eventual gap was 0.1s, but Hakkinen could have gone as much as 0.6s quicker but for a couple of errors.

The session took nearly an hour and a half to complete after two enormous accidents for the BAR team.

Jacques Villeneuve lost his car on the exit of Eau Rouge, slamming backwards into the tyre wall and rolling through the gravel trap. His car was destroyed but the Canadian was unhurt.

Then just a few minutes after the session restarted, his team-mate Ricardo Zonta lost control in virtually the same place, spinning into the gravel on the outside of the course.

His BAR dug in and rolled at high-speed, bouncing off the tyre wall and spinning furiously across the track before coming to a halt.

All four wheels were ripped off his car, but Zonta was miraculously unscathed.

Both drivers should start the race tomorrow, having qualified 11th and 14th.

The Jordans will start third and fourth, Damon Hill right on the pace this weekend but just behind Heinz-Harald Frentzen nevertheless. They fought with fifth-placed Ralf Schumacher to be 'best of the rest' behind the dominant McLarens.

This trio are very evenly-matched, but they are over a second off Hakkinen's pole time.

The Ferrari's never had enough pace to challenge for pole. Eddie Irvine was sixth, Mika Salo ninth, although at least only 0.2s split them this weekend.

Rubens Barrichello was a surprise seventh after being off the pace for most of the weekend. His team-mate Johnny Herbert will start tenth, while Alex Zanardi has taken his best ever F1 grid placing with eighth.

The Italian had electrical problems yesterday and brake trouble this morning, but was still competitive at the circuit where he could so easily have died six years ago. Has he finally made the breakthrough in his troubled F1 return season?

Further down, the Benettons, Saubers and Prosts were all off the pace, and unsurprisingly the back row was filled with the two Spa rookies in the field: Marc Gene and Pedro de la Rosa.

The qualifying result suggests a McLaren walkover, with Irvine having to work hard to get past Schumacher and the Jordans.

However, Spa is always something of a lottery. The weather can change in an instant and absolutely anything could happen in tomorrow's race.

Qualifying positions for the Belgian Grand Prix: