Hamilton snatches fifth pole of the season

(CNN) -- Lewis Hamilton drove a superb final lap to earn his fifth pole position of the season at the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps.

The championship leader finished ahead of his main challenger Felipe Massa, of Ferrari, while his McLaren teammate Heikki Kovalainen took third place on the grid.

Ferrari's other driver, world champion Kimmi Raikkonen, completed the top four.

BMW-Sauber's Nick Heidfeld was fifth, edging former world champion Fernando Alonso of Renault.

Hamilton set a time of 1 minute, 47.338 seconds on Saturday in the decisive qualifying session at the 7.004 kilometer (4.352-mile) Spa-Francorchamps circuit, beating Massa by 0.340 seconds.

Australian Mark Webber was seventh for Red Bull ahead of Poland's Robert Kubica in the second BMW, Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais in a Toro Rosso and Sebastian Vettel of Germany in the second Toro Rosso.

Hamilton has a six-point lead over Massa as they prepare for the penultimate European race of the year and he was full of confidence.

"It was a perfect lap, one of my four perfect laps, so I was very happy," he said.

"I made no mistakes and the team made no mistakes so we are looking good," said Hamilton.

Massa felt that there was little wrong with his lap. "It was as good as I could have done," he said. "Sometimes you do your best, do a perfect lap and then you find it is not enough, and that is what happened today."

Hamilton conceded : "It is not over yet and it is going to be a very challenging day for me and all of us tomorrow. But I am feeling really good.

"I am all over, much better than I felt in Valencia. I feel better than ever now and we had perfect preparation for this race.

"I have got a big smile on my face, but I hope I still have tomorrow."

After a wet morning it was dry for the afternoon in the final minute Massa and Hamilton were pushing as hard as possible. The Brazilian went top briefly before the leader took over again to grab pole.