Max Verstappen secured pole position at the Belgian Grand Prix qualifying session, despite facing a five-place grid penalty for the GP due to the fitting of a fifth gearbox of the season. This penalty, however, does not affect his starting spot for Saturday’s sprint race.
Verstappen had a tense exchange with his engineer, Gianpiero Lambiase, over Red Bull's run plan, which saw him barely make it through in 10th in Q2 following the switch from wet to dry tyres in that session.
In the final runs of Q3, Charles Leclerc initially took the top spot with a time of 1m46.988s. However, Verstappen, running deep in the Q3 pack, secured the fastest time with a 1m46.168s, pushing Leclerc to second place before Verstappen's grid penalty was applied.
Alex Kalinauckas joins Martyn Lee to analyse all of today’s action.
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