Lando Norris will start Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix from pole position after pipping his McLaren team-mate Oscar Piastri in a front-row lockout for the Woking outfit. The Briton set a time of 1m40.562s, which was less than a tenth of a second quicker than the Australian, and it was enough to lock down his position at the the front of the grid.
Both drivers opted for a high-downforce setup, enabling them to be head and shoulders ahead of the rest of the field in the second sector. The two McLarens had dominated every session around the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, with Norris and Piastri swapping places at the top in Q1 and Q2.
But Norris went two tenths of a second quicker on the first run in Q3, with Max Verstappen a further three tenths adrift of Piastri. They couldn’t afford to be complacent, given that Verstappen won the F1 Sprint earlier on Saturday and was also the quickest qualifier in the last four Belgian GP qualifying sessions – although he only started on pole once due to penalties and grid drops.
The half-Belgian driver would have loved nothing more than to extend that run at a track he calls home. But he was unable to match the two Papayas as they fought each once again at the front, with Norris showing that slight edge over Piastri, despite the fact he snatched pole ahead of the Sprint.
Charles Leclerc, who had started the last two races in Belgium at the front of the grid, leapfrogged Verstappen into third on the second row with an impressive lap. But it was a matter of mixed fortunes at Ferrari, as his team-mate Lewis Hamilton endured yet another nightmare in qualifying and will start Sunday’s race from 16th.
Alex Albon sprung a surprise to go ahead of George Russell in P5, with Yuki Tsunoda seventh for Red Bull. The Racing Bulls celebrated having both Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson compete in the top-10 shootout and they qualified eighth and ninth ahead of the ever-improving Gabriel Bortoleto, who only crept into Q2 thanks to Hamilton’s lap deletion.
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Esteban Ocon, Ollie Bearman, Pierre Gasly, Nico Hulkenberg and Carlos Sainz were all unable to get themselves into Q3 in a tightly-contested finish to Q2.
Hamilton pays the penalty
Q1 began in farcical fashion when Hulkenberg and Lance Stroll collided coming out of their respective garages in the pitlane, forcing the Sauber man to change his front wing and also result in a change for Stroll. The incident triggered an investigation from the FIA stewards for an unsafe release.
Hamilton found himself in a dropzone as the checkered flag waved at the end of Q1, but the Briton appeared to have avoided the same fate as his disappointing Sprint qualifying result and pulled himself up to seventh. However, he was found to have gone all four wheels off at Radillion and subsequently saw his lap time deleted, demoting him to P16 and out of qualifying again.
After the session, he said on the team radio: “Is everything OK?” only to be informed by race engineer Riccardo Adami that his lap time was removed.
Consequently, Hamiilton joined Alpine’s Franco Colapinto, Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli, and Aston Martin pair Fernando Alonso and Stroll in being knocked out.
