Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli took a scintillating pole position at the Belgian Grand Prix, leaving team-mate and title rival George Russell trailing in fourth, more than 0.5 seconds adrift.
The Italian, who leads the championship from Russell by 25 points, beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen by 0.317secs, even though the four-time champion had the help of a tow from team-mate Isack Hadjar.
McLaren’s Lando Norris was an impressive third, 0.440secs back, despite bailing on his final lap, but the world champion has a 10-place grid penalty for exceeding his allowance of engine parts.
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were fifth and sixth, ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and the upgraded Racing Bull of British rookie Arvid Lindblad.
Antonelli has looked the man to beat since topping Friday practice and he delivered on his potential with his sixth pole position in 10 races so far this year.
On the slowing down lap, he sent his best wishes to his father Marco, who is celebrating his 61st birthday on Saturday.
Antonelli said: “Q1, I felt a bit lost because the wind picked up and the balance was a bit more on the edge but the session came to us. I changed a little bit the front wing flap for Q2. Q3 was good because we did a decent first lap and second lap I found a lot of time. It was a good lap.”
Russell said: “The lap felt good. But we have just been dealing with an issue with the straight-line speed ever since Silverstone.
“We thought we had found the problem, it wasn’t the problem and then we thought it was a driving style and it wasn’t the solution.
“But I feel after looking at the data, I feel positive with the job I did. If you just take the corners, I did a very good job.
“Battling against Kimi is very tough in a fair fight. When we are in this situation, it’s impossible. The team are working so hard to try and pinpoint what it is. It can be a million things.”
Red Bull employed Hadjar to help Verstappen with a slipstream on the long flat-out section to the final chicane as the Frenchman has a 30-place grid penalty for taking a new engine, which puts him over the limit for the year.
Verstappen said the tow gained him 0.3secs in lap time.
He added: “It was definitely helping me otherwise I would not be standing here, it would be P6 or something.
“Isack, knowing he had a penalty and would be starting at the back, he helped me. I will be looking in my mirrors tomorrow. But we are happy to be on the front row with how we executed it as a team.”
