Italian Grand Prix Qualifying Round-up

Qualifying started with both Mercedes cars coming out on mediums to see if they could get through using only that tyre. Russell had a good time ending Q1 fastest, still on the mediums, whilst Antonelli was forced to swap to the softs later on. Sainz had his first lap time deleted for going wide at Lesmo 2. Max also went wide at the same corner but hanged onto the lap but reporting to the team to "check the floor".

As some fast laps came in, McLaren set the pace at the top with Norris P1 with a 1.19.611 and Piastri a tenth back, followed by Leclerc and Verstappen. Alex Albon's qualifying did not start well with him locking up at turn 1 and going straight over the chicane. Leclerc went for a second lap on his soft tyres and managed to get his Ferrari to P2, but was taken moments later by a surprisingly quick Aston Martin of Alonso.

As stated before, Russell took overall fastest in Q1 still on the medium tyres, setting a 1.19.4 and some good results for Sainz in P3 and Bortoleto in P5 even though he had a wobble through Parabolica. Isack Hadjar unfortunately was knocked out of Q1 for the first time in his F1 career as the team had found some issues on the engine, forcing him to take a new one for the Grand Prix tomorrow, making him drop from P16 to a pitlane start. Stroll, Colapinto, Gasly and Lawson were also knocked out in the first part of Q1.

Q2 was shortly delayed because the marshals were obliged to go onto the track and sweep some loose stones from cars going wide through some corners. Sainz and Albon were the first contenders to appear on track with Albon going wide through Ascari on his first flying lap. Lando Norris was to box after he went over the chicane at turn 1, his front right locking up. This put him out of sync to the rest of the 14 cars.

Verstappen finished Q2 on top, followed by Russell, Piastri and another super effort from Bortoleto in the Kick in P4. Bearman, Hulkenburg, Sainz, Albon and Ocon found themselves the wrong side of the top 15 even though Williams showed strong pace all weekend, when it really mattered, they didn't have the 1 lap pace to compete. Norris had a good tow from his teammate to secure a place in the top 10.

The first quick laps in Q3 came from Verstappen again in P1 with a 1.18.923 but his teammate Tsunoda had a possible battery related issue on his car and was down on Max. Leclerc slotted in P2, just 0.084 of the provisional pole time. Piastri in P3, followed by Hamilton P4 and Russell in P5. Bortoleto and Antonelli put in decent laps on used soft tyres in P6 and P8. Norris had another bad lap in P8 but had no slipstream to benefit from.

As the clock ticked on, it was all or nothing now for the top 10 shootout and Tsunoda crossed the line first but without any crucial slipstream was 10th, followed by the Ferrari pair who had nothing more to give and couldn't improve P4 and P5 for them but with Hamiltons 5 place grid penalty, leaves him in P10 for the race start. The big 3 all were so close and Norris took pole but then fractionally missed out by the formidable 4x World Champion, Max Verstappen who took an incredible 45th pole position in his career. 0.071 ahead of Norris. Piastri in P3. Mercedes crossed the line P6 and P7 with Russell confused why the team hadn't put medium tyres on his machine because he had asked for them; Antonelli improved nicely to P7. A great qualifying for Bortoleto in P8 and Alonso in P9 to finish off Qualifying.

Verstappen now holds the record for the quickest lap at Monza ever with a 1.18.792 which also beat the quickest average speed on a lap of all time too by Hamilton in 2020 with a 1.18.887.

This was the full result for the Italian Grand Prix Qualifying: