Lando Norris made significant improvements to his qualifying performance to take pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix.
Q1
There was commotion in the pit lane before qualifying even began as Nico Hulkenberg tried to squeeze onto the pit lane, where Lance Stroll had driven past, causing front wing damage for Hulkenberg.
Plenty of drivers had made an initial early lap before coming into the pits, with the only two drivers having set a time after six minutes in the two McLarens.
Due to the reduced sets of tyres thanks to this being a sprint weekend, teams were being frugal with their fresh tyres, with representative times only really beginning to be set on fresh tyres about half way through the session.
Andrea Kimi Antonelli’s poor weekend continued as he was unable to hook up a particularly strong lap, with the Italian only doing a time good enough for 18th place.
Lewis Hamilton had found himself also continuing a poor weekend as while he was able to put in a time that would’ve comfortably put him through into Q2, a track limits violation at Radillon meant that his time was deleted, and he would be knocked out in 16th place.
ELIMINATED
16. Lewis Hamilton – Ferrari +0.031
17. Franco Colapinto – Alpine +0.114
18. Kimi Antonelli – Mercedes +0.231
19. Fernando Alonso – Aston Martin +0.477
20. Lance Stroll – Aston Martin +0.594
Q2
Haas were one of two teams to have gotten both cars through to SQ3 yesterday, but today proved to be a much different story, with both Ocon and Bearman failing to reach Q3 and will be starting tomorrow’s race locking out the sixth row of the grid.
Sainz is someone else who significantly underperformed compared to their sprint qualifying performance. After going 6th in yesterday’s session, he was knocked out of Q2 in 13th place.
Yuki Tsunoda put in a much better qualifying performance compared to his recent run of performances, getting into Q3 for the first time since the Miami Grand Prix, and was only three tenths off of Verstappen.
ELIMINATED
11. Esteban Ocon – Haas +0.110
12. Oliver Bearman – Haas +0.202
13. Pierre Gasly – Alpine +0.218
14. Nico Hulkenberg – Sauber +0.292
15. Carlos Sainz – Williams +0.343
Q3
Lando Norris was able to successfully take provisional pole position after everyone’s first laps, having seemed to significantly pick up the pace compared to yesterday’s sprint qualifying and effectively matching the pole time from that session.
Temperatures appeared to increase slightly ahead of everyone’s final runs, which certainly compromised some of the gains made towards the top of the timing table. Verstappen lost a chunk of time at the start of his lap and was only able to gain about a tenth overall, while neither McLaren managed to gain at all.
Leclerc put in a very strong lap to take third place away from Verstappen, while Albon was able to climb to 5th with Tsunoda qualifying 7th, four tenths slower than his teammate.
Qualifying results
1. Lando Norris – McLaren 1:40.562
2. Oscar Piastri – McLaren +0.085
3. Charles Leclerc – Ferrari +0.338
4. Max Verstappen – Red Bull +0.341
5. Alex Albon – Williams +0.639
6. George Russell – Mercedes +0.698
7. Yuki Tsunoda – Red Bull +0.722
8. Isack Hadjar – Racing Bulls +0.748
9. Liam Lawson – Racing Bulls +0.766
10. Gabriel Bortoleto – Sauber +1.825
