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Oscar Piastri claimed pole position for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix with a superb lap for McLaren at Imola during a session marked by two huge accidents involving Yuki Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto and by a shock early exit for the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton at their home race.
Piastri beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen into second place by just 0.034sec in what was a closely-fought qualifying session at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari. Mercedes’ George Russell was in third, Piastri’s McLaren teammate Lando Norris was fourth and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso fifth.
Ferrari however endured a shocker at their first home race of the season with both Leclerc and Hamilton going out in 11th and 12th in Q2.
The session was marked first by a huge, dangerous accident for Red Bull’s Tsunoda who crashed out with a major impact at the Villeneuve chicane during Q1. He took too much kerb on the way in and spun before hitting the barriers backwards. The impact threw his car up and nearly over the tyre wall, but in the process it flipped entirely over, before just smashing back into the ground but fortunately upright and on the track side of the barriers. Tsunoda emerged appearing unhurt but was taken to be examined in the medical centre.
It had been an exceptionally violent impact and the car’s safety cell and halo device functioned well to protect him, with other drivers expressing their concern having seen the accident. The session was stopped for 15 minutes while the barriers were repaired and his car was removed.
However after the session had restarted and with just seconds remaining in Q1, Colapinto, making his debut for Alpine, went wide putting his left-rear wheel off at the exit of Tamburello. As he lost the rear the car spun repeatedly and hurtled across the gravel trap before slamming into the barrier, entering front first with a jarring impact. He too was unhurt but apologetic at his error and the session was once more stopped to enact repairs.
Colapinto had set a good enough time to make it to Q2 by that point so finished in 15th but will face a potential grid penalty for being released into the pit lane before the session had been restarted after Tsunoda’s crash.
For Ferrari, hopeful of at least putting on a decent show for the tifosi at Imola, there was only disappointment. Caught as the track rubbered in at the end of Q2 – with both Aston Martins finding real pace on the medium rubber and the two Williams also proving very quick – Hamilton and Leclerc set their times but both of their runs were marked by small errors and they then tumbled down the order.
“Sorry guys, I can’t improve for some reason,” Hamilton told the team over the radio.
After so much drama the pole had still to be decided and on the first hot runs in Q3 it was Verstappen who set the pace with a 1min 14.772sec lap. He was immense through the first sector where he took a substantial chunk of time off Piastri and Norris.
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On the final quick laps, Piastri opened and was much better through sector one, and the McLaren then leaned on its pace advantage in the final two sectors, taking provisional pole. Norris could not match it and while Verstappen did improve once more in sector one he could do no better for the rest of the lap and Piastri had the place by just three-hundredths of a second with a time of 1:14.670. Russell delivered a fine lap on the mediums to push Norris into fourth while Alonso enjoyed his best qualifying of the year by no little distance with a remarkable fifth place.
Tsunoda will start from the back of the grid on Sunday. Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon were in sixth and seventh for Williams, Lance Stroll is in eighth for Aston Martin, Isack Hadjar in ninth for Racing Bulls and Pierre Gasly 10th for Alpine.
Behind the two Ferraris, Kimi Antonelli was in 13th for Mercedes and Gabriel Bortoleto in 14th for Sauber.
Liam Lawson was in 16th for Racing Bulls, Nico Hülkenberg in 17th for Sauber, Esteban Ocon and Oliver Bearman in 18th and 19th for Haas. Bearman however appeared to have made it through to Q2 in the final seconds of Q3 when Tsunoda crashed and his final lap time is under review by the FIA.
