F1 Italian GP: Norris on pole from Piastri as Verstappen struggles
Lando Norris led a McLaren 1-2 in qualifying for Formula 1’s Italian Grand Prix, with points leader Max Verstappen qualifying down in seventh.
George Russell took third for practice pacesetter Mercedes.
Oscar Piastri and Verstappen are set to see the stewards post-qualifying due to an incident in Q1 where the McLaren was released into the Red Bull’s path in the pits and Verstappen had to slam on the brakes.
Norris led Piastri after the first runs in Q3, with the Briton leading the way on a 1m19.401 and his team-mate 0.035s down.
At this stage, the two Mercedes (Russell leading Lewis Hamilton) cars trailed in third and fourth, with the two Ferraris (Carlos Sainz-Charles Leclerc) line-astern next, as were the two Red Bull cars – Verstappen down in eighth and behind Sergio Perez after saving a massive snap at the Parabolica on his opening Q3 effort.
In the second and final runs, Verstappen ran first of the frontrunners in Perez’s slipstream, but although he improved his personal best he only rose slightly up the order – only beating Perez who went off at Lesmo 2 while still running ahead of his team-mate on their final laps.
Behind, Norris only went quicker in sector two compared to his previous personal best, but he still improved the first-place benchmark to set pole at 1m19.327s.
Piastri could not go quicker across all three sectors of his second Q3 lap but stayed second when Sainz could not head him and then Russell slotted into third slightly later for Mercedes.
Leclerc also shuffled Sainz back to fifth, with Hamilton ending up sixth – but with a healthy margin to the Red Bull cars behind.
The other Q3 runners – Alex Albon and Nico Hulkenberg – ended up ninth and 10th for Williams and Haas.
The start of Q2 was delayed by nearly 10 minutes as the marshals had to sweep gravel off the circuit at “multiple areas” – per an FIA spokesperson – with Franco Colapinto’s Lesmo 2 gravel trip and Kevin Magnussen going off briefly and Ascari and for longer at the Parabolica.
After this, Fernando Alonso was the highest-profile faller in Q2, as he ended up 11th for Aston Martin – ahead of RB’s Daniel Ricciardo, Magnussen and the Alpine pair Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon.
In Q1, Ricciardo’s last-gasp improvement knocked out Yuki Tsunoda, with Lance Stroll shuffled back to 17th ahead of Williams rookie Colapinto, who rued his off on his final run.
Behind were Sauber pair Valtteri Bottas and Zhou Guanyu, who were running behind the various Magnussen offs when it came to completing their final tours amid scattered gravel and various yellow flags.
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