IMOLA, Italy — Oscar Piastri edged Max Verstappen to win the pole for Sunday’s for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix at Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari during qualifying on Saturday.
The McLaren driver, who leads the Formula 1 standings, turned a best lap of one minute and 14.670 seconds to nip the four-time world champion’s Red Bull machine by a mere .034 seconds
“It was a great session, very tough session with all the delays, red flags, and then also the tires – the tires were very, very tricky today,” said Piastri after his third pole of the season. “I think after yesterday everyone thought the C6 [soft tire] was not too bad, and then today it was a real mystery.
“The team did a great job, put the car in a nice window. We’ve been trying a few different things this weekend and we got into a nice place for qualifying.
“The lap was good, I had about four cars in the last corner which didn’t help but it was enough, so [I’m] very, very happy with the job we’ve done and excited for tomorrow now.”
While Verstappen was second, George Russell claimed the third spot.
“First of all, the most important thing is that Yuki is okay, so that is good, especially after a crash like that happens,” Verstappen said. “Today, to get P2 it was overall a good result and I think we improved a lot from yesterday. The car was a lot nicer to drive and we did some good work overnight and made positive developments. I am pretty happy with the balance of the car and we put it in a much better window and saw it really come alive. The tires overheated a bit more than we would like; it was the first time with this tyre and they were a bit too soft for us which impacted our performance a bit.”
Piastri’s teammate, Lando Norris, earned the fourth position, while Fernando Alonso claimed the fifth position for Aston Martin.
Neither Ferrari made the top 10 with Charles Leclerc 11th and Lewis Hamilton 12th, respectively.
