London: Ferrari scores a front row lock-out at Spa led by Charles Leclerc as he topped all three stages of qualifying.
Charles Leclerc scored the third pole position of his Formula 1 career in dominant fashion as he crushed the field in qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix on Saturday at Spa.
After topping both FP2 and FP3 for Ferrari, Leclerc managed to carry his form through all three stages of qualifying as he led the entirety of the session en route to pole position. Leclerc put in two laps good enough for pole, with his final effort of 1m42.519s being almost three-quarters of a second better than anything his rivals could manage.
It marks Leclerc’s third F1 pole after previous successes in Bahrain and Austria earlier this year, but the Monegasque driver is still searching his maiden grand prix victory. Ferrari clinched a front row lock-out as Sebastian Vettel took P2 despite calling his final run a “mess” as a number of drivers jostled for position through traffic, causing many to slow right down on-track.
Lewis Hamilton qualified third after a rapid turnaround from his Mercedes mechanics to repair his car following his crash in final practice, but also bemoaned traffic issues that compromised his final run. Mercedes teammate Valtteri Bottas will start fourth on the grid.Max Verstappen took fifth for Red Bull, more than one second off the pole time, with former teammate and current Renault driver Daniel Ricciardo taking sixth on the grid, a further six-tenths of a second back.
Nico Hulkenberg claimed P7 in the sister Renault car ahead of Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen, while Sergio Perez and Kevin Magnussen rounded out the top 10 for Racing Point and Haas respectively.
Romain Grosjean’s run of Q3 berths came to an end after his switch back to Haas’ latest-spec car, losing out by less than six-hundredths of a second to teammate Magnussen in Q2 as he qualified 11th.
