Rand Norris was in favor of the Belgian Grand Prix pole position despite not improving McLaren’s teammate Oscar Piastri on his final flying lap.
Piastri’s huge advantages from Friday’s sprint qualifiers broke up, and he and Norris were in close match throughout the Grand Prix Grid setting session. Norris led the way to the end of his first run. Briton went a longer path than Piastri and 0.189 seconds faster than Piastri, and quickly boiled the Paul Battle into a straight battle between his teammates.
However, after two segments improving track conditions, the temperature rose in the final minutes of the third quarter, appearing to take the grip track. The last long stage of the session to win the pole suddenly fell slow, making profits difficult to get.
Norris failed to improve on the first split and despite the purple mid-division, he ended the knee, unable to improve his original time of 1m40.562.
It kept the door open wide towards the piastry, taking the top spot. The Australian put his best personal time in the first two sectors together into the ballpark, but he couldn’t improve in the final split, so he shortened 0.085S and checked his teammates in pole position.
Norris said he didn’t feel suspicious about speed despite the deficit on Friday.
“It was a decent rap,” he said. “Everyone was pretty worried yesterday. I wasn’t even that far. It was the slightest small problem we had.
“I’ve been confident since yesterday and I’ve been confident today, so it was great to see me get back to the top, I felt better.
Piastri said on Friday that Spa Franco Champ’s fast-sector speeding up after taking Sprint poles was one of the worst circuits to begin with, and the Australian joked that he was going to qualify behind his teammates, but he was disappointed that he didn’t complete the final lap neatly.
“After the sprint, I was aiming for P2,” he said with a laugh. “It felt like I did some sculpture today, and I didn’t do it completely when it was important.
“We were really well together on the second lap, so we made a bit of a mistake on (turn) 14 and lost a lot of time. It wasn’t a bad place to start, but it’s even more disappointing.”
Charles Leclerc was an impressive third for Ferrari, finishing with an improved 0.338 seconds off the pole after being blown away in sprint qualifying on Friday. Leclerc has placed a small margin on the team that will improve their upgrade package this weekend. He said this will help fill the gap further in racing conditions.
“I’m very happy today,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting that because I’m only 0.3 seconds yet, I’m only third. I think we’ve come back quite a bit.
“We knew there was something in the car with the upgrade this weekend, but yesterday we still struggled, but it was a really, really good lap. I’m very pleased with the lap and very happy with how the car felt.
Max Verstappen, Sprint winners from the beginning of the day0.341 seconds from the pace to qualify for the fourth, Dutchman had only one fresh soft set for Q3, so he saved for the final lap.
Alex Albon is Williams’ fifth and fifth in the season ahead of George Russell, with the Mercedes driver 0.698 seconds away from the pace.
Tsunoda was seventh in Red Bull Racing’s best qualifying performance, beating his previous best results in Saudi Arabia, making his first Q3 appearance since Miami in May. The Japanese were 0.381 seconds slower than his teammate Verstappen, his second most despicable margin.
Racing Bulls teammates Isack Hadjar and Liam Lawson were closely behind Tsunoda in the 8th and 9th place, while Sauber Rookie Gabriel Bortoleto completed the top 10 in his second Q3 appearance of his career.
Haas teammates Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman share the sixth row despite the two cars being constructed very differently. Ocon chose to set up with a low downforce, while Bearman chose to run with a deeper rear wing, but by the end of the second quarter the two were separated by just 0.092.
Pierre Guthrie was 13th in the Alpine ahead of Sauber’s Nico Halkenberg and Williams driver Carlos Signes. Hulkenberg watches the stewards after the session over an unsafe release at the start of the qualifying round.
Lewis Hamilton’s miserable weekend continued, with the Belgian five-time winner knocking out to 16th place after removing the fastest lap to exceed the track limit. Briton, who finished 15th in the sprint in 18th place, placed all four wheels on the white line at the top of the Raydion on his final lap in Q1, threw them into the knockout zone just 0.031 seconds from safety.
Hamilton was the first quarter of the season, his first quarter since last year’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.
Franco Colapinto will be 17th in Alpine ahead of Andrea Kimi Antonelli. The Mercedes driver endures a tough weekend after finishing 17th in the sprint after the final qualifying round. It was Italy’s second quarter exclusion of the first quarter of the year, and the Australian Grand Prix held in its final season.
Aston Martin teammates Fernando Alonso and Lance locked out the back rows of the grid on the 19th and 20th.
The result has halted the team’s upward momentum in recent months. This is the second in the past seven Grand Prix, where Alonso failed to reach the third quarter.
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