Max Verstappen went fastest in Qualifying for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix, but a five-place grid penalty means Charles Leclerc will start the race from pole.
Verstappen’s benchmark time of 1:46.168 was almost a second ahead of second-placed Leclerc, who was 0.820s back.
Sergio Perez finished the session in third place and will start on the front row of the grid as a result on Sunday.
The start of the session was delayed by 10 minutes due to a red flag incident in the preceding F2 session and a rain shower.
However, the skies started to clear as Q1 got underway, with drivers using Intermediate tyres on the still-damp surface.
In Q2, the track started to dry and the final runs of the session were run on dry tyres, with Verstappen just scraping through in 10th place.
The top-10 Q3 shootout was a fully dry tyre affair, with the surface continuing to evolve right until the final seconds.
| Position | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
|
Max Verstappen | Red Bull | 1:46.168 | |||
| 2 |
|
Charles Leclerc | Ferrari | 1:46.988 | 0.820 | ||
| 3 |
|
Sergio Perez | Red Bull | 1:47.045 | 0.877 | ||
| 4 |
|
Lewis Hamilton | Mercedes | 1:47.087 | 0.919 | ||
| 5 |
|
Carlos Sainz Jr | Ferrari | 1:47.152 | 0.984 | ||
| 6 |
|
Oscar Piastri | McLaren | 1:47.365 | 1.197 | ||
| 7 |
|
Lando Norris | McLaren | 1:47.669 | 1.501 | ||
| 8 |
|
George Russell | Mercedes | 1:47.805 | 1.637 | ||
| 9 |
|
Fernando Alonso | Aston Martin | 1:47.843 | 1.675 | ||
| 10 |
|
Lance Stroll | Aston Martin | 1:48.841 | 2.673 | ||
| 11 |
|
Yuki Tsunoda | AlphaTauri | ||||
| 12 |
|
Pierre Gasly | Alpine | ||||
| 13 |
|
Kevin Magnussen | Haas | ||||
| 14 |
|
Valtteri Bottas | Alfa Romeo | ||||
| 15 |
|
Esteban Ocon | Alpine | ||||
| 16 |
|
Alex Albon | Williams | ||||
| 17 |
|
Guanyu Zhou | Alfa Romeo | ||||
| 18 |
|
Logan Sargeant | Williams | ||||
| 19 |
|
Daniel Ricciardo | AlphaTauri | ||||
| 20 |
|
Nico Hulkenberg | Haas |
