Properly armed, the Australian has managed to better his more experienced British colleague over the two days in Italy, also having finished fastest of all the drivers in the final practice session on Saturday morning.
For Red Bull’s Verstappen, it was a dramatic return to form after problems in practice as he maintained his astonishing qualifying record, tying the late, great Ayrton Senna’s Formula 1 record of eight pole positions in a row at Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari.
Piastri will drop three places back on the grid.Credit: Getty Images
It was Verstappen’s 39th career pole in all as he seemed to, almost magically, find some extra pace after finishing fifth, sixth and seventh in the three Imola practice sessions.
“What a difficult start! But we turned it around,” he declared on race radio, having wrapped up his seventh straight pole of the season.
Senna achieved his eight in a row in 1988 and 1989 before dying in crash on the same Imola track in 1994.
“It’s a great start to the year and very special. It’s 30 years since Ayrton passed away, so very pleased to get pole and in a way it’s a nice memory to him. He was an incredible F1 driver,” Verstappen said.
There was bad news for Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez, who missed the final shootout and will start from 11th place on Sunday.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso did even worse, having to settle for 19th having also crashed earlier in final practice.
Ferrari, who had dominated Friday practice, had to be content with fourth place from Charles Leclerc and fifth from Carlos Sainz in front of their home tifosi.
Source Agencies
