Verstappen beats Hamilton to pole for F1 title decider

It looked as though Mercedes had the advantage going into Q3, but a combination of fantastic teamwork from Red Bull and a brilliant lap from Verstappen enabled him to snatch his 10th pole of the season ahead of his championship rival. 

Verstappen was boosted by a tow from Red Bull teammate Sergio Perez on his first run to go half a second clear of Hamilton, before the Mercedes driver responded with an improvement on his final Q3 effort. 

But it was not enough to prevent Verstappen from securing a comfortable pole with the Dutchman finishing qualifying 0.371s faster than Hamilton. 

It sets up a mouth-watering prospect with the two championship protagonists sharing the front row of the grid heading into their winner-takes-all contest. 

But Verstappen will start Sunday’s race on softer tyres than Hamilton after Red Bull opted for a different strategic approach when Verstappen flat-spotted his medium tyres in Q2 and switched to softs. 

Verstappen will look to take advantage of the grippier soft tyres to maintain his position ahead of Hamilton, who will start the race on mediums. 

Behind the battle for pole, Lando Norris produced a stunning late lap in his McLaren to snatch third on the grid ahead of Perez’s Red Bull. 

Carlos Sainz put his Ferrari fifth ahead of Valtteri Bottas, who was only sixth-fastest for Mercedes. 

The second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was seventh, ahead of AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon’s Alpine, while Daniel Ricciardo completed the top-10 for McLaren. 

Fernando Alonso missed out on a Q3 spot by just 0.012s as he took 11th for Alpine, ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly. 

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll outpaced Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo or 13th, while Sebastian Vettel was eliminated in 15th after getting heavily compromised in a messy traffic queue at the end of Q2. 

Nicholas Latifi out-qualified George Russell for their last race as Williams teammates before Russell makes the switch to Mercedes. 

Just 0.085s separated the Williams pairing as Latifi secured 16th place ahead of Russell. 

Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen was 18th-fastest in his final F1 qualifying session before the Finn calls time on his illustrious career following Sunday’s grand prix. 

Raikkonen ended up just a tenth clear of Mick Schumacher, who was over seven-tenths quicker than Haas teammate Nikita Mazepin.