Kimi Antonelli took Mercedes’ 10th pole position of the season as he puts 3 tenths between himself and Verstappen ahead of tomorrow’s Belgian Grand Prix.
Q1
Despite the length of the track producing larger gaps in qualifying compared to the rest of the tracks on the calendar, there was a tight race for who would be able to squeeze into Q1. Colapinto was just able to knock Albon into the elimination zone after being one of the last to cross the line, and while the Williams driver would stay 17th, the gap between him and Bearman in 16th was just 7 thousandths of a second.
Albon may well not be starting tomorrow’s race in 17th though as grid penalties await Isack Hadjar and Lando Norris. Two other drivers that will receive penalties tomorrow are Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll, but even without that they would be starting last anyway, with the two being even further off the pace than usual, as demonstrated by the fact that the gap between Stroll in 22nd and Perez in 20th was bigger than the gap from Perez to 1st.
ELIMINATED
17. Alex Albon – Williams +0.007
18. Esteban Ocon – Haas +0.688
19. Valtteri Bottas – Cadillac +0.710
20. Sergio Perez – Cadillac +0.858
21. Fernando Alonso – Aston Martin +2.889 (10 PLACE GRID PENALTY)
22. Lance Stroll – Aston Martin +3.064 (10 PLACE GRID PENALTY)
Q2
The look of the front of the grid was looking somewhat different by the end of Q2 compared to Q1, as Antonelli looked to take hold of top spot ahead of the final qualifying session, going three tenths faster than anybody else. Furthermore, the likes of Ferrari had made gains, while Verstappen had dropped off a bit compared to how he was looking during the first part of qualifying.
Close fights for the last safe spot continued as Lawson narrowly missed out on the top 10, going just under 4 hundredths slower than Bortoleto to get knocked out. Hadjar had looked like he could possibly be eliminated at one point, and with the penalty looming over him it would have been really bad for tomorrow’s race, though he was able to safely make it through to Q3, albeit only having gone 9th fastest.
ELIMINATED
11. Liam Lawson – Racing Bulls +0.038
12. Pierre Gasly – Alpine +0.249
13. Nico Hulkenberg – Audi +0.310
14. Franco Colapinto – Alpine +0.589
15. Carlos Sainz – Williams +0.695
16. Ollie Bearman – Haas +0.697
Q3
It was Lando Norris who would go quickest following on from everyone’s initial laps in Q3, but it was Antonelli that was effectively on provisional pole position due to the McLaren’s grid penalty. Antonelli would find that the task of keeping his provisional pole would be tough, as Leclerc and Verstappen would prove to be close and likely to fight for pole by the end of the session.
It would be Max Verstappen who would be the first to challenge for pole position, initially taking top spot by a little over a tenth of a second, having a helping hand of slipstream from teammate Hadjar heading into Blanchimont.
He would only stay in top spot for a moment though, as Antonelli would then cross the line to go over 3 tenths faster, without even getting any slipstream from his own teammate. Russell for his troubles would go 4th, half a second slower than Antonelli, while the Ferraris demonstrated similar pace.
Norris, who had been so quick up to this point in the day, dipped his tyres onto the gravel at the exit of the Les Fagnes chicane, and would go on to abandon his lap, still having set the third fastest lap of the session.
Qualifying Results
1. Kimi Antonelli – Mercedes 1:44.361
2. Max Verstappen – Red Bull +0.317
3. Lando Norris – McLaren +0.440 (10 PLACE GRID PENALTY)
4. George Russell – Mercedes +0.508
5. Charles Leclerc – Ferrari+0.532
6. Lewis Hamilton – Ferrari +0.534
7. Oscar Piastri – McLaren +0.655
8. Arvid Lindblad – Racing Bulls +0.782
9. Gabriel Bortoleto – Audi +1.267
10. Isack Hadjar – Red Bull NO TIME (10 PLACE GRID PENALTY)
