The championship leader routed the rest of the field with his initial 1m29.012s, which would have been good enough for pole on its own, but a second lap yielded further improvements and he found over a tenth to secure a 1m28.877s.
Verstappen's final lap was 0.581s clear of Piastri's opening effort, which the Australian could not improve on the second time around, but nonetheless was enough for him to secure a first front-row start having shaded team-mate Lando Norris by just 0.035s.
