F1 championship leader Oscar Piastri has kept calm under pressure to put McLaren on pole position for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.
Red Bull’s reigning world champion Max Verstappen will join the Australian on the front row.
George Russell qualified third for Mercedes at Imola, with McLaren’s Lando Norris fourth in a session that was twice red-flagged after Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto crashed in the first phase.
Ferrari, meanwhile, experienced a new low in front of its home fans.
Charles Leclerc was 11th and Lewis Hamilton 12th ahead of the seven-times world champion’s first race in Italy for the Maranello-based team.
Piastri clocked a best lap time of 1 minute and 14.670 seconds to secure his third pole of the season.
The 24-year-old is chasing a fifth win in seven races and fourth in a row to stretch his 16-point lead over Norris on the championship standings.
“It was a very tough session with all the delays, the red flags,” Piastri said.
“The lap was good. I had about four cars in the last corner, which didn’t help, but it was enough. So, very happy with the job I’ve done and excited for tomorrow.”
Four-times world champion Verstappen had been on provisional pole, before finishing with 1:14.704 to sit second behind Piastri in qualifying.
“Everything was going really well, just this softest compound is very difficult to keep alive around the lap,” Verstappen said of the Pirelli tyres he used.
“Sector one was good and then the tyres again fell away from me from there onwards by tiny margins.”
Fernando Alonso will line up fifth for Aston Martin, an impressive turnaround for a team that has struggled this season.
Williams pair Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon were sixth and seventh fastest.
Reuters
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