The Latest Breaking News from Esteban Ocon

Verstappen had not headlined a single session across the weekend so far, but dialled in his pace throughout the qualifying sessions and found a quarter-second advantage at the very end to deny Ferrari a chance at pole.

A brief excursion at Turn 1 mattered little to Charles Leclerc. He was already on top of the Formula 1 pile in FP2, prior to his brief off towards the end of the session, having beaten Max Verstappen by almost four-tenths of a second.

The French team slipped down F1's pecking order in its transition to its new A524 chassis, and has failed to recapture its regular position in challenging for points from last season as the early-spec car has lacked outright pace.

Watch: Explained: Mercedes Grabs Resta from Ferrari in F1 Staff Swoop

A soft-spoken and affable character away from the action, Ocon has built up a rather different reputation among his peers once he gets down to business. The 27-year-old is known for his straightforward, no-nonsense and no-compromise attitude, whether he is dealing with team-mates, team bosses or his battling his rivals.…

When teams embark on such a change of direction, it is inevitable that they endure a learning phase in understanding how to extract pace out of their new platform.

Alpine was already braced for a low-key start to the season after a late concept change, which meant it had initially made a sideways step over the winter while its rival teams were full steam ahead with bringing improvements to their cars. But team principal Famin admitted the nature of…

The opening two rounds of the season in Bahrain and Jeddah confirmed what pre-season testing had suggested, as Alpine struggled at the back of the field with the slowest car.

Hulkenberg made a late pitstop work thanks to a defensive masterclass by Kevin Magnussen, who held up rivals to create a pit window for his team-mate. There was controversy over Magnussen, who already faced a 10-second penalty for clashing with Alex Albon, who then overtook RB's Yuki Tsunoda off the…

Verstappen beat his team-mate Sergio Perez, who incurred a penalty during the pitstops that didn’t impact the finishing order, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

Verstappen will start ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and his Red Bull team-mate Sergio Perez after the one-hour qualifying session, which is split into three segments with five cars each being knocked out in Q1 and Q2 before the top-10 shootout of Q3.