Verstappen flies to pole ahead of Norris and Antonelli!

After the first round of push laps, Oscar Piastri emerged as the top man with a gap to Max Verstappen of 0.266s. His teammate placed P3 a tenth behind the Dutchman. Alexander Albon and Fernando Alonso were in the top 5 ahead of Lewis Hamilton, Carlos Sainz, Jack Doohan, Nico Hulkenberg and Charles Leclerc who completed the top 10 at the halfway mark of the session.

As Andrea Kimi Antonelli went up to P1 ahead of Carlos Sainz, George Russell was only P5. Lewis Hamilton on new tyres could only be P15. Whilst Verstappen improved on the Italian rookie’s time to claim P1. For Piastri, his effort was enough for P2, as teammate Norris after a poor Sector 2 slotted in P5.

Russell was able to move up to P3, as Tsunoda and Hamilton cash their ticket to Q2 in the final moments of Q1

Eliminated: Nico Hulkenberg, Fernando Alonso, Pierre Gasly, Lance Stroll, Oliver Bearman

As the drivers completed their first push laps, Verstappen was in P1 provisionally. Until Piastri demoted him to P2, which became P3 after Norris slotted in behind Piastri, and it was ultimately P4 since Antonelli’s first lap of Q2 was quick enough to put himself in P3.

Leclerc and Hamilton did not have the pace to beat Albon and Sainz, so they had to settle for P7 and P8. Russell was honest about his lack of confidence in his W16 and requested Mercedes let him go early for his final run. A request which the German team denied.

As the session drew to a close, Russell got out of the elimination zone, but his former teammate, Hamilton, couldn’t being eliminated in Q2 in P11. His teammate Leclerc, did marginally better in P8, but clearly Ferrari is still struggling with pace.

Max Verstappen extracted the most out of his RB21, and then some, to take provisional pole after the first round of push laps. Lando Norris was well on his way to take P1 but a mistake - again - only allowed him to take P2 behind the Dutchman.

Ahead of his teammate, Piastri, though, who didn't seem to be able to find the pace in his McLaren, as his time was only good enough for P3. Fine margins, though, as P1 and P3 were separated by a mere 0.017s.

Behind the top 3 Antonelli came in P4 ahead of Albon and Russell who mimicked Norris error in Turn 7. Then Sainz, Ocon and Tsunoda rounded off the top 9 with Leclerc unable to set a time after his error at Turn 7, similar to those of Norris and Russell, saw him leave the track, which caused his first push lap to be eliminated.