He was joined on the grid's front row by his teammate Hamilton who had a grazed front left brake disc that caused his car to jerk and lost time by changing his braking points. Vettel and Alonso took third and fourth after their first timed laps of the final session and both drivers could not better the two Mercedes. Ricciardo qualified fifth after running wide at Blanchimont corner on his final lap. A loss of time in the first third of the lap caused Bottas to start from sixth. An understeer from flat-spotting his front tyres at the La Source hairpin in the second session meant Magnussen took seventh. Multiple driving errors from Räikkönen placed him in eighth. Ninth-placed Massa had a grazed front right disc in the track's heavy braking zones. Traffic on his warm-up lap comprised his tyre warming and slowed him. Button took tenth after he locked his brakes cresting a hill on the run to Les Combes corner. Kvyat was the fastest driver not to qualify in the top ten because he was demoted to 11th in the final seconds of the second session. An exhaust system fault limited his teammate Vergne to three timed laps and 12th place. The wet track prevented Pérez from improving his lap and he took 13th. Sauber's Adrian Sutil pushed hard to start from 14th and Romain Grosjean of Lotus had a loss of rear car control that restricted him to 15th. Marussia driver Jules Bianchi entered the second session for the second successive year in Belgium and the third time in the last four races; he took 16th after balance issues at Les Combes corner and brake grazing problems caused him to run deep at Bruxelles turn. Maldonado failed to progress beyond the first session after he spun on his fastest lap and was 17th. Hülkenberg in 18th could not progress past the first session for the first time since the 2012 season due to a loss of brake feel and a minor driver error. A lack of battery power put Chilton 19th and powertrain problems restricted Gutiérrez to 20th. Lotterer in 21st out-qualified his Caterham teammate Ericsson in 22nd by almost a second. The fastest lap in each of the three sessions is denoted in bold and the winner of pole position is indicated by a . The race began from a standing start at 14:00 Central European Summer Time (). The weather at the start was dry with dark clouds, and some rain had fallen.