Verstappen claims dominant pole, Hamilton on front row

Max Verstappen claimed back-toback pole positions in Formula 1 for the first time in his career with a dominant qualifying display at the Styrian Grand Prix.

A third pole of the season for Verstappen never looked in doubt as the Red Bull driver posted two laps good enough for pole and was the only man to dip below the 1m04s bracket on a 1m03.841s.

Verstappen ended up 0.194s clear of Valtteri Bottas, though the Mercedes driver will drop three places on the grid due to picking up a penalty for his pitlane spin in practice.

Instead, it will be his teammate Lewis Hamilton who will join his title rival on the front row of the grid.

Hamilton struggled to hook up a lap good enough to challenge Verstappen despite having three attempts in Q3 as he wound up 0.226s adrift having ran wide on his final flying effort.

A stunning lap from Lando Norris secured fourth place for the McLaren driver, with the Briton just 0.279s shy of Verstappen’s pole time.

Norris will move ahead of Bottas to start from third.

Sergio Perez was unable to replicate his Red Bull teammate’s scintillating pace as he took fifth place ahead of AlphaTauri’s Pierre Gasly and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Yuki Tsunoda advanced to Q3 for just the second time in his rookie season as he claimed eighth, though the AlphaTauri driver is under investigation for blocking Bottas during the first runs in Q3.

Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll completed the rest of the top-10 order for Alpine and Aston Martin.

George Russell agonisingly missed out on a first-ever Q3 appearance for Williams by just 0.008s as he kept up his 100% record of Q2 outings in 2021 with a brilliant lap to take 11th.

The Mercedes protege impressed as he outpaced Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz and Daniel Ricciardo’s McLaren, with the latter pair both suffering disappointing qualifying sessions on their way to P12 and P13.

Aston Martin driver Sebastian Vettel had his fastest lap deleted for track limits and dropped to 14th, ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi, who outqualified teammate Kimi Raikkonen for the sixth time this season in his latest Q2 appearance.

Despite posting an eye-catching first push lap, Nicholas Latifi was unable to join his Williams teammate in Q2 and was shuffled down the order as others improved around him on their final runs to end up 16th.

Latifi was joined in the bottom five by Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, who could only manage the 17thbest time as he suffered a surprise elimination in Q1 to mark his worst qualifying result of the season.

In contrast to his Alfa Romeo teammate, Raikkonen also endured a tough qualifying, with a trip through the Turn 4 gravel proving costly on his way to a lowly 18th.

The experienced Finn will line up on the grid for Sunday’s race ahead of only the Haas duo of Mick Schumacher and Nikita Mazepin, who were once again restricted to the back row.

Why Lewis Hamilton's F1 qualifying queue jump backfired at Styrian GP

Lewis Hamilton says he regrets his decision to overtake a number of drivers as he prepared to begin his final flying lap of qualifying for Formula 1’s Styrian Grand Prix.

The seven-time world champion qualified third for Sunday’s race but will join his title rival and polesitter Max Verstappen on the front row after his Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas’ threeplace grid penalty is applied.

Hamilton, who ended up missing out on pole by 0.226s, was seen overtaking a number of his rivals in the last sector at Spielberg just before he started his final push lap in Q3.

Having failed to improve on his last run, which included a wide moment at the final sequence of corners, Hamilton admitted his queue-jumping tactic was “definitely” a mistake “in hindsight”.

“I knew that everyone was going so slow and I was worried [about] not having the tyres up to temperature but I went on all the dirty lines so I was just picking up all the dirt on the tyres,” Hamilton said.