F1 Belgian GP: Kimi Antonelli beats Max Verstappen to…

Kimi Antonelli clinched his sixth Formula 1 pole position of the year with the fastest lap in Belgian Grand Prix qualifying, beating Max Verstappen by 0.317s.

The Italian continued Mercedes' lock-out of pole positions despite having to chase Verstappen's second lap, as the Dutchman made use of a "tow and a half" from Isack Hadjar - encumbered by a series of grid penalties for power unit changes - to briefly move to the top.

Antonelli then dug out three tenths over Verstappen's lap to set a 1m44.361s, which none of the remaining drivers were able to get close to across their final laps. Thus, the championship leader booked his place alongside Verstappen on the front row, who praised the efforts of Red Bull to use Hadjar for slipstreaming purposes.

Largely against the run of play, Lando Norris had set the quickest time of the first runs after finding 0.039s on Antonelli's opening effort, while Charles Leclerc also put himself into the conversation with a lap within the same hundredth of the cars ahead.

A red flag emerged between runs to clear a sprinkling of gravel which emerged on-track at Stavelot, producing a slightly extended gap between the first and second runs of Q3.

Both Antonelli and Verstappen moved ahead of Norris on their final tours, but the McLaren driver's opening Q3 effort remained good enough for third; the Briton later bailed on his second lap after running across the gravel at Turn 13. To his relief, he managed to avoid the wall-clipping fate of Pierre Gasly and Lewis Hamilton in similar incidents at that corner in practice.

Max Verstappen was aided by team-mate Isack Hadjar in Q3 (Photo by: Alastair Staley / LAT Images via Getty Images)

Norris, however, takes a 10-place grid penalty for Sunday's race and thus starts 13th on the grid when accounting for other penalties. George Russell thus moves up to third after finishing fourth in the session, alongside Leclerc on the second row.

Hamilton qualified sixth (making the session after his end-of-Q3 crash) and will move up to fifth alongside Oscar Piastri, who improved late to move ahead of an impressive Arvid Lindblad on tomorrow's grid. Lindblad starts seventh, alongside Gabriel Bortoleto. Hadjar did not get a qualifying time in, knowing that he'll start Sunday's race from the last row of the grid.

Liam Lawson improved on his second run of Q2, but just fell four-hundredths short of overturning Bortoleto and could not join his team-mate Lindblad in the top 10. Lawson, not running Racing Bulls' updated car this weekend as only one set of parts was available, ended up half a second shy of his team-mate.

Both Alpines qualified 12th and 13th, Gasly from Franco Colapinto, as the Argentine found time on his last lap to move ahead of Nico Hulkenberg - whose car stopped on track during his in-lap with a hydraulic leak to produce a delay to Q3. Carlos Sainz and Oliver Bearman had just 0.002s between them as they completed the Q2 drop zone.

Alex Albon was dumped out at the climax of Q1, as both Alpine drivers improved on their final laps; Colapinto had been in the drop zone after the opening runs, but he pulled himself out of the mire at Albon's expense.

The Williams driver was just 0.007s shy of Bearman at the end of the first stage, while the other Haas driver - Esteban Ocon - struggled to make use of a slipstream from the cars ahead and fell out in 18th place.

Valtteri Bottas was the lead Cadillac (Photo by: Guido De Bortoli / LAT Images via Getty Images)

Valtteri Bottas was just 0.022s behind Ocon and led the line for Cadillac, leapfrogging Sergio Perez in their second runs. Perez had been a full two seconds clear of Fernando Alonso, the fastest of the Aston Martins, while Lance Stroll propped up the qualifying order.

Alonso will start at the back regardless, after taking a series of power unit changes for this weekend.