Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix can be seen live on the ` Sport website
Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc took pole position ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen at the Italian Grand Prix.
As the Tifosi cheered, Leclerc beat Red Bull’s championship leader Max Verstappen by 0.145 seconds.
Verstappen is demoted as one of nine drivers with a grid penalty – it’s just five places.
Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz, Red Bull’s Sergio Perez and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who have bigger penalties, completed the top five.
That means Mercedes’ George Russell, who qualified sixth fastest, is likely to start second.
Leclerc, who won this race in 2019 in his first season for Ferrari, said: “It’s incredible. It wasn’t easy qualifying all together and I managed it on the last lap.
“The car has felt great all weekend and I really hope to finish tomorrow like I did in 2019.”
Verstappen, who is 109 points clear of Leclerc and on track to win a second title within two or three races, said: “The lap was pretty decent, just in the first sector we seemed a bit slow, a bit straight line speed, not finding the grip a bit but the rest of the lap felt pretty strong.
“We chose a higher downforce (level) than some other cars and the race runs felt good so I’m looking forward to racing.”
McLaren’s Lando Norris was eighth fastest ahead of team-mate Daniel Ricciardo, the Australian’s best qualifying performance since April’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.
Alpha Tauri’s Pierre Gasly qualified ninth ahead of Fernando Alonso who had a disappointing session in the Alps.
Alonso abandoned his first lap in the final session and then had his second erased for exceeding the track limits on the second Lesmo on his final lap.
“Q3 wasn’t very well executed,” he said. “I tried two runs but the first run wasn’t good either. So I feel sorry for the team that I didn’t do a lap. Even that lap I did was only enough to finish P8, so it seems we’re missing a bit.” performance in qualifying. Let’s see if we can improve tomorrow.”
The multitude of penalties make working out the grid order difficult – along with VerstappenSainz and Perez, Alpine’s Esteban Ocon, Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas, Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda and Haas drivers Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher will all fall behind on the grid to varying degrees.
Some of them are likely to put Dutchman Nick de Vries in the top 10 at the Williams.
De Vries was drafted into Alex on Saturday morning Albon was diagnosed with appendicitisand qualified 13th ahead of teammate Nicholas Latifi.
Several teams paid tribute to Queen Elizabeth II after her death on Thursday
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