Verstappen Secures Pole Position at Monza, Leclerc Aims for Victory for Ferrari
In an exciting qualifying session for the Italian Grand Prix, the current world champion, Max Verstappen, demonstrated his dominance by securing pole position, surpassing Lando Norris at the Monza circuit. Verstappen set a time of 1:18.792 on his last lap, relegating Norris to second position, after the McLaren driver briefly led the session.Norris, after a complicated weekend, managed to advance to Q2 in the final moments. Although he didn’t get the pole, he surpassed his McLaren teammate, Oscar Piastri, who will start from the second row alongside Charles Leclerc of Ferrari. Leclerc, who stayed less than 0.1 seconds behind Verstappen after the first laps in Q3, couldn’t improve his time in the final attempt, finishing 0.215 seconds behind the leader. This promises an exciting race at Monza’s famous first chicane, with the title contenders interspersed between Verstappen and Leclerc, who will seek to repeat Ferrari’s victory from last year.Here, with little downforce, it’s very difficult to nail the lap. Under braking it’s easy to make mistakes. Q3 was good, I’m happy with the laps and being on pole here is fantastic.
Max Verstappen
Piastri downplayed the suggestion that he felt safe in qualifying. “Turn 1 was a bit so-so, but the rest of the lap was pretty good. I feel like I had a pretty good session,” he commented. Leclerc’s teammate, Lewis Hamilton, qualified fifth, but will have a grid penalty. This will benefit George Russell and local favorite Andrea Kimi Antonelli, along with Gabriel Bortoleto, Fernando Alonso and Yuki Tsunoda. Oliver Bearman and Nico Hulkenberg finished in 11th and 12th place, respectively. Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon achieved 13th and 14th place, respectively. Esteban Ocon de Haas was 15. Isack Hadjar was eliminated in Q1. Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll and Alpine’s Franco Colapinto also failed to advance to the second session. Liam Lawson, Hadjar’s teammate at Racing Bulls, will start last on the grid.Max has been fast all weekend and it’s never a surprise with Max. It was a pretty good session for me, with ups and downs and too many mistakes here and there. Putting everything together on the last lap made me very happy, so I’m happy with second place.
Lando Norris
