Lando Norris starts fourth, with fellow Englishman George Russell in fifth. After a challenging weekend, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will start from sixth and his run of eight straight poles has come to an end. Had he claimed pole yesterday, the Dutchman would have set a new record for consecutive pole positions. Verstappen admitted after qualifying yesterday that the track has proved troublesome for the Red Bull this weekend.
“We tried a lot of things and nothing made it better so I was stuck, there is nothing you could do,” Verstappen said. “You can see in the second sector we are so bad because when I touch the kerbs it upsets the car. It was incredibly difficult.
“It is jumping around a lot and not absorbing the bumps or kerb strikes. In the last corner, the amount of times I almost jumped into the wall was incredible. We have had this problem since 2022, so it is not something new. For the past few years we have had a car advantage so it gets masked. But with everyone catching up, when you don’t improve your weakest point you get found out. It is a fundamental problem so it will not get fixed in weeks.”
Verstappen’s teammate, Sergio Perez, had a dreadful qualifying as he was knocked out in Q1 for the second straight season. Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso also had a Saturday to forget as he was knocked out in the first part of qualifying. The two Haas drivers of Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen were disqualified from qualifying after both cars were found to have non-compliant rear wings, but both will be permitted to start from the grid rather than the pit-lane.
Will Leclerc win his home race for the first time or can the likes of Piastri, Sainz or Norris spoil those plans? We will found it in the next few hours.