Piastri pips Verstappen, takes pole at Imola

Championship leader Oscar Piastri calmly delivered a near-flawless lap under acute pressure on Saturday to claim pole position for McLaren ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

The 24-year-old Australian clocked a best lap in one minute and 14.670 seconds shrugging aside a cluster of slower drivers at the final corner, to beat the four-time world champion by 0.34 seconds.

In a delayed and incident-hit qualifying session of two red-flag interruptions, it was his third pole position this year and his career.

Team-mate Lando Norris, who is 16 points behind him in the drivers’ title race, was fourth behind Mercedes’ George Russell, ahead of two-time champion Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin in fifth place.

Carlos Sainz of Williams was sixth ahead of team-mate Alex Albon, Lance Stroll in the second Aston Martin, Racing Bulls’ rookie Isack Hadjar and Pierre Gasly of Alpine.

The Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton failed to make the cut to Q3 and qualified 11th and 12th ahead of local hero Kimi Antonelli in the second Mercedes.

Imola, an old-style circuit with a tragic past as the track where Ayrton Senna died in 1994 and also expected to drop off the calendar next year, is Ferrari’s home race and marks the start of the European season.

“It was a great session, very tough with the delays and red flags and the tricky tyres,” said Piastri.

“The team did a great job and got the car in a nice window, we’ve been trying a few different things this weekend and we got into a nice place for qualifying.”

Verstappen was satisfied despite missing out on his third consecutive pole.

“It was a good day for us,” he said, a sentiment repeated by Russell. “We could not have achieved much more here today,” said the British driver.

The session began in spectacular fashion in glorious spring sunshine when Yuki Tsunoda walked away from an alarming high-speed crash.

He lost control of his Red Bull car when he rode the kerbs at the Variante Villeneuve and it lifted and flew sideways before turning upside down into a single barrel roll before skewing into the barriers.

The action resumed after a 12-minute interval to repair the circuit before another red flag in the final seconds of Q1 when returning rookie Franco Colapinto, replacing Jack Doohan for Alpine, crashed on the exit of Tamburello.

His car was badly damaged as he spun into the barriers nose-first, but he was unhurt and walked clear of the wreckage.

Verstappen topped the Q1 times ahead of Piastri and Alonso with Liam Lawson, of Racing Bulls, Sauber’s Nico Hulkenberg and the two Haas cars of Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman eliminated along with Tsunoda.

Bearman’s late cancelled time was declared to be ‘under review’ as Q2 was delayed, a decision that suggested he might be reinstated to replace Sauber’s Gabriel Bortoleto. Both sat in their cars waiting before the Brazilian drove alone to pit lane in anticipation. Two minutes later, Bearman conceded his place in Q2 and climbed out.

The first run saw McLaren back on top, two-tenths clear of Verstappen, before in a dramatic second Sainz went top and Aston Martin’s duo secured top-ten spots by eliminating both Ferraris.

Agencies