Kimi Antonelli achieved his sixth Formula 1 pole position of the season with the quickest lap at Spa-Francorchamps, edging out Max Verstappen by 0.317 seconds.
The Mercedes driver continued the Silver Arrows’ lock-out of pole positions despite having to chase Verstappen’s second lap, as the four time champion made use of a “tow and a half” from Isack Hadjar – following a series of grid penalties for power unit changes – to briefly move to the top.
Antonelli then pushed to gain three tenths over Verstappen’s lap to set a time of one minute, 44.361 seconds, which none of the remaining drivers were able to get close to across their final laps. Thus, the championship leader booked his top spot alongside Verstappen on the front row, who praised the efforts of Red Bull to use Hadjar for slipstreaming purposes.
Largely against the run of play, Lando Norris had set the quickest time of the first runs after finding 0.039 seconds on Antonelli’s opening effort, while Charles Leclerc also put himself into the contention with a lap within the same hundredth of the cars ahead.
A red flag emerged between runs to clear gravel which emerged on-track at Stavelot, producing a slightly extended gap between the first and second runs of Q3.
Both Antonelli and Verstappen moved ahead of Norris on their final laps, but the McLaren driver’s opening Q3 effort remained good enough for third. The McLaren driver later aborting his second lap after running across the gravel at Turn 13. To his relief, he managed to avoid the wall-clipping fate of Pierre Gasly and Lewis Hamilton in similar incidents at that corner in practice.
Norris, however, takes a 10-place grid penalty for the Belgian Grand Prix and will start P13 on the grid when accounting for other penalties. George Russell thus moves up to third after finishing fourth in the session, alongside Leclerc on the second row.
Hamilton qualified sixth and will move up to fifth alongside Oscar Piastri, who improved late to move ahead of an impressive Arvid Lindblad. The Racing Bulls driver will start seventh, alongside Gabriel Bortoleto. Hadjar did not get a qualifying time in, knowing that he will start the race from the last row of the grid.
Liam Lawson improved on his second run of Q2, but just fell four-hundredths short of overturning Bortoleto and could not join his teammate Lindblad in the top ten. Lawson, not running the team’s updated car this weekend as only one set of parts was available, ended up half a second off.
Both Alpines qualified P12 and P13, Gasly from Franco Colapinto, as the latter found time on his last lap to move ahead of Nico Hulkenberg – whose car stopped on track during his in-lap with a hydraulic leak to produce a delay to Q3. Carlos Sainz and Oliver Bearman had just 0.002 seconds between them as they completed the Q2 drop zone.
Alex Albon was knocked out at the climax of Q1, as both Alpine drivers improved on their final laps. Colapinto had been in the drop zone after the opening runs, but he pulled himself out over Albon’s expense.
The Williams driver was just 0.007 seconds off Bearman at the end of the first stage, while the other Haas driver – Esteban Ocon – struggled to make use of a slipstream from the cars ahead and fell out in P18.
Valtteri Bottas was just 0.022 seconds behind Ocon and led the finishing line for Cadillac, moving Sergio Perez in their second runs. Perez had been a full two seconds clear of Fernando Alonso, the fastest of the Aston Martins, while Lance Stroll propped up the qualifying order.
Alonso will start at the back regardless, after taking a series of power unit changes for this weekend.
The run up to the Les Combes corner on the opening lap of the Belgian Grand Prix is going to be fascinating thanks to the slipstream effect. So expect Kimi Antonelli versus Max Verstappen to lead. Bring on the race!
Belgian Grand Prix, qualifying results:
1 Andrea Kimi Antonelli Mercedes 1:44.361
2 Max Verstappen Red Bull-Ford 1:44.678
3 George Russell Mercedes 1:44.869
4 Charles Leclerc Ferrari 1:44.893
5 Lewis Hamilton Ferrari 1:44.895
6 Oscar Piastri McLaren-Mercedes 1:45.016
7 Arvid Lindblad Racing Bulls-Ford 1:45.143
8 Gabriel Bortoleto Audi 1:45.628
9 Liam Lawson Racing Bulls-Ford 1:46.120
10 Pierre Gasly Alpine 1:46.331
11 Franco Colapinto Alpine 1:46.392
12 Nico Hulkenberg Audi 1:46.671
13 Lando Norris McLaren-Mercedes 1:44.801*
14 Carlos Sainz Williams-Mercedes 1:46.777
15 Oliver Bearman Haas-Ferrari 1:46.779
16 Alexander Albon Williams-Mercedes 1:47.120
17 Esteban Ocon Haas-Ferrari 1:47.801
18 Valtteri Bottas Cadillac-Ferrari 1:47.823
19 Sergio Perez Cadillac-Ferrari 1:47.971
20 Lance Stroll Aston Martin-Honda 1:50.177
21 Isack Hadjar Red Bull-Ford 2:03.555*
22 Fernando Alonso Aston Martin-Honda 1:50.002*
*Ten-place grid penalty for power unit change
Kimi Antonelli has added a sixth pole position to his season tally after setting the fastest lap in Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix, fending off challenges from Max Verstappen and Lando Norris.
The Mercedes driver took time to find a rhythm during the hour-long session, but his final effort of 1m 44.361s was enough to seize P1 by three-tenths from Verstappen, who suffered a near miss with Isack Hadjar on his last lap, having been given a tow by his Red Bull team mate.
Norris – who will drop to P13 thanks to a 10-place grid penalty for exceeding his power unit components allocation – had initially set the fastest time after the opening runs in Q3, but couldn’t find more to beat Antonelli but was ultimately faster than George Russell, Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton.
Small margins separated most of the top qualifiers as Oscar Piastri took P7 from Racing Bulls’ Arvid Lindblad, with Gabriel Bortoleto in P9. Hadjar qualified 10th but will tumble to the back of the field due to his 20-place grid penalty, promoting all those behind him by a place.
View all standings
Racing Bulls’ Liam Lawson missed out on a place in Q3 by just 0.038s to a rapid Bortoleto and will line up ahead of Alpine’s Pierre Gasly (12th) and Franco Colapinto (13th). While his team mate made Q3, Nico Hulkenberg could only manage P14 for Audi, with his session ending with a sudden hydraulic leak that caused a small delay to the beginning of Q3.
Ollie Bearman finished P16 behind Carlos Sainz, while the second Williams of Alex Albon wasn’t able to make it out of Q1 and settled for P17. He was just ahead of Esteban Ocon, who suffered a disappointing early exit on the 10th anniversary of his F1 debut.
Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez followed in P19 and P20 for Cadillac, with the Aston Martin pair locking out the back row – though, like Hadjar, Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll will also start the Grand Prix with substantial grid penalties.
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/antonelli-charges-to-pole-position-in-exhilarating-belgian-gp-qualifying.zpGgC6xi6e3QnZEOmi6qS
Max Verstappen praised Red Bull team-mate Isack Hadjar for delivering him “a tow and a half” in Formula 1 qualifying at the Belgian Grand Prix, which he credited with helping him towards his front-row start for tomorrow’s race.
With Hadjar consigned to starting at the back of the grid on Sunday, having taken a series of new power unit components (primarily engine, turbo, and exhaust) outside of his allocation, Red Bull ensured regardless that it had Hadjar available in Q3 to assist Verstappen.
The team opted to use Hadjar’s slipstream in the final sector, through the Blanchimont sweep and on the approach to the final chicane. On the first attempt, Hadjar needed to back off out of Turn 15 to allow Verstappen to close in and soak up the tow, but the second attempt appeared to be more effective.
This time, Verstappen got much closer to Hadjar and it initially looked too close for comfort between the two drivers, but the four-time champion nailed his braking point for the chicane and briefly moved up to the top of the Q3 order. Kimi Antonelli then pressed home an advantage and collected pole by three tenths, but Verstappen lauded the team’s efforts over the radio regardless.
“Overall the whole weekend the balance of the car has been quite decent,” Verstappen explained. “I think we’re just a bit slow in the straight, but yeah the car has been in the window, just trying to fine-tune a little bit and yeah it was the same in qualifying.
“At one point we were a bit stuck in terms of how much more lap time you can extract out of it, to be honest, because every lap that I did was a little bit faster, but yeah at one point I mean flat is flat, so there’s no more time to gain in corners.
“That’s something maybe we have to review, maybe we’re too easy flat, I don’t know.
“But the car was good and then of course Isack in Q3 helped me a lot with the tow in the final sector, that’s why of course I’m sitting here, otherwise it could have easily been P6.
“The gaps behind was so close, so thank you to him for that – I think as a team we did everything we could.”
https://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/verstappen-i-wouldnt-have-been-on-belgian-gp-front-row-without-hadjar-help/10839874/
Kimi Antonelli admitted that it wasn’t a “straightforward” journey to securing pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix, despite ultimately beating the competition by more than three-tenths.
After setting the pace in FP2 and FP3, the Mercedes driver took some time to warm up during the session and lost out to rivals like Max Verstappen and George Russell in Q1, with the Briton finishing ahead of him for the first time this weekend.
However, Antonelli quickly bounced back to top the times in the second segment of Qualifying before completing a sublime lap to deny both Verstappen and Lando Norris – his final effort of 1m 44.361s saw him outpace the lead Red Bull by an impressive 0.317s.
After claiming his sixth pole of the season, Antonelli said: “It’s great to be on pole. It was not a very straightforward session – the track changed a lot but we were able to improve lap by lap and bring home pole which was nice.
“Of course, tomorrow is another day. I have Max starting next to me so it’s going to be important to get a good start and then try to be ahead into Turn 5.
“The last lap was good, I improved a lot in Sector 2 especially. [It] was a nice lap. Of course, there was still a little bit here and there but it was very clean, so I’m very happy.”
The Italian is looking to shake off a run of misfortune that led to his retirement in Barcelona, a missed opportunity for victory in Austria, and a non-scoring finish last time out at Silverstone.
Aside from Mercedes’ reliability struggles, Antonelli has regularly converted pole position into race wins and is hoping to do the same again in the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix, which would help him increase the points gap at the top of the Drivers’ standings.
“Good start and try to have good pace,” he said of his plan for race day. “Degradation of course is going to be very big but we try our best in order to maximise the performance. It’s going to be fun tomorrow.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/its-going-to-be-fun-tomorrow-antonelli-revels-in-hard-fought-pole-position-for-belgian-gp.3O8zjBRt8eZX8w4IdXJ1uU
Mercedes driver George Russell was left to rue “super frustrating” issues after Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix – the Briton believing that it is currently “impossible” to challenge team mate Kimi Antonelli.
Russell ended Saturday’s grid-deciding session more than half a second down on Antonelli, explaining how the speed deficits he encountered on the straights at Silverstone appear to have carried over to Spa-Francorchamps.
Asked for his feelings when he jumped out of the car, Russell said: “Well, that felt good to be honest. But we’ve just been dealing with an issue with the straight-line speed ever since Silverstone, and we thought we found the problem – changed it, it wasn’t the problem.
“We thought it was the driving style, and tried different driving styles, it wasn’t the solution. The losses are just astronomical at the moment but, after looking at the data, I feel positive with the job I did. My lap, if you just take the corners, they were very good.”
Pushed on how frustrating it feels, given his title-contending ambitions, and the 25-point gap to Antonelli, Russell opened up further on the predicament he has found himself in.
“It’s super frustrating, you know,” he replied. “Battling against Kimi at the best of times is very tough in a fair fight. When we’re in this situation, it’s impossible.
“You’re losing all the lap time in the straights, the team are working so hard to try and pinpoint what it is, because it can be a million things.
“It’s not just the engine is slow. It can be the drag or something binding, is it the bearings, is it the power unit, is it the battery, is it the wings, is it the floor? There are a million different things.
“I was trying a karting strategy of putting my head down to see if that helped but it didn’t.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/russell-feels-its-impossible-to-challenge-antonelli-amid-super-frustrating-issues.UoHRFs4Q9kfNJ3umlWars
Lando Norris was enthused by his performance during Qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix as he delivered “one of the best laps I’ve ever done”, though he will not be able to fully reap the rewards due to a grid penalty.
Before any track action took place at Spa-Francorchamps, McLaren confirmed that Norris would have to serve a 10-place grid drop after they chose to fit a new power electronics unit to his car, thereby exceeding the permitted allocation for the component.
The decision coincided with an increase in pace for the Briton, who seized provisional pole before Kimi Antonelli and Max Verstappen bumped him down to P3, which will become P13 on race day.
Norris then aborted his second flying lap after going wide and rattling over the gravel at the Fagnes Chicane, where Lewis Hamilton and Pierre Gasly both crashed earlier in the weekend – but Norris’ initial time was still enough to remain third on the timesheets.
Asked to summarise the session, Norris said: “Very good actually – pretty surprised to be P3. My lap was a pretty mega lap. It was probably one of the best laps I’ve ever done in Qualifying so I’m pretty happy with today.
“It’s just a shame I start P13 tomorrow. It doesn’t matter too much but I’ve been happy all weekend. I feel like I’ve been doing a good job all weekend.
“I’m getting the most out of the car and I feel like I did that again today. P3 was certainly the best we could achieve.”
McLaren chose to implement the updated component to address the reliability issues that saw Norris experience failures in China, Japan and Monaco, and selected the Belgian Grand Prix due to its overtaking opportunities.
Nevertheless, the reigning World Champion insisted that he’s keeping his expectations low and will target another valuable points haul.
“We can certainly move forward, but how far into the top eight is a different question,” he explained. “I think it was an amazing lap to put me P3 but it wasn’t like I was miles ahead of the others – I was like half a tenth or a tenth.
“If you’re half a tenth or a tenth quicker, especially with the lap that I did, we’re probably not actually quicker than them.
“I don’t expect to have an incredible chance to get high up the order tomorrow, but I think if we can get in the top six maybe, that would be amazing. If it’s just the top eight, then I think that’s what we should expect.”
https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article/why-norris-believes-spa-qualifying-was-one-of-the-best-laps-hes-ever-done.4l2fEdCs6sfzZERmagUi6L