Sainz will start third in the Sprint and Alonso will deal with his anger from fifteenth place
MADRID, 29 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Dutch driver Max Verstappen (Red Bull) achieved pole position this Saturday for the Sprint race at the Belgian Grand Prix, the twelfth round of the Formula 1 World Cup, and for the moment forgot his sanction for the Sunday long race, while that the Spanish Carlos Sainz (Ferrari) and Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin) had mixed luck.
On the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, Verstappen took the privileged position on the grid by only 11 thousandths of a second from the best time of Australian Oscar Piastri (McLaren). Thus, the Dutchman did his best lap in 1: 49.056; just behind Piastri, Sainz was third and was 25 thousandths off the lead.
With delays on the track due to the fact that it rained again, just like the day before, the three rounds of the Shootout were surprising. In SQ1, the Japanese Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri), the Finnish Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo), the Danish Kevin Magnussen (Haas), the Chinese Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo) and the German Nico Hülkenberg (Haas) were screened.
In SQ2, Alonso was fifteenth and eliminated along with Australian Daniel Ricciardo (AlphaTauri), Thai Alexander Albon (Williams), American Logan Sargeant (Williams) and Canadian Lance Stroll (Aston Martin). Visibly angry at the performance of his car, the Spaniard admitted not expecting “anything” from the Sprint now.
And already in the middle of SQ3, among the 10 best-performing cars, Verstappen signed up for his place of honor. Not surprisingly, Piastri and the two Ferrari team drivers, on the one hand the aforementioned Sainz and on the other his partner Charles Leclerc, pushed ‘Mad Max’ to the conclusion.