F1: George Russell Makes It To Front Row As Verstappen Takes Pole For Belgian GP

Red Bull's Max Verstappen denied Williams' driver George Russell his maiden pole position in Formula 1 as the latter put up an incredible performance during the session. Russell had his career'sest-ever qualifying session as he set the timesheets on fire but a late run by Verstappen allowed him to take the pole, the ninth of his career. Completing the top three was Lewis Hamilton in what a rain-soaked qualifying that delayed the proceedings. Verstappen set a time of 1m59.765s with Russell the pole by just 0.321s. Hamilton, meanwhile, was down by 0.334s over the pole-sitter.

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The Belgian GP qualifying session was rain-soaked and saw the drivers switch to wets for Q3

The Belgian GP qualifying was an action-packed affair as the rain intensified ahead of Q3. Drivers switched to wets after completing Q1 and Q2 on intermediates. Q3 was disrupted after a huge crash involving McLaren's Lando Norris at Raidillon that caused the session to be red-flagged for over half an hour. While the driver had been the quickest in Q1 and Q2, he lost control and slammed into the barriers before spinning and coming to a stop at the top of the hill.

Aston Martin's Sebastian Vettel was one of the first drivers to stop and check on Norris. The driver though walked away from the incident and has been cleared to race on Sunday.

Hamilton qualified third having led the Q3 time early on but Verstappen and Russell managed better times

When the session began once again, it was Hamilton who initially set the pace on intermediates before Russell and later Verstappen beat him to the top spot. Behind the top three drivers, Daniel Ricciardo managed an impressive fourth in the McLaren followed by Vettel in fifth place.

Pierre Gasly took P6 in the AlphaTauri, ahead of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas in the Mercedes. However, Bottas will start five places further back on the grid due to a grid penalty for causing the crash at the head of the pack at the first corner of the Hungarian GP.

This moves Esteban Ocon in the Alpine to P8, ahead of Norris at P9 and Scuderia Ferrari's Charles Leclerc at P10. The Ferrari driver though failed to advance to Q3, along with Nicholas Latifi in the Williams and Carlos Sainz in the second Ferrari. Bottas' penalty moves to the two to P11 and P12 respectively.

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Max Verstappen starts on pole position as the fight for the world championship title intensifies

Starting behind Bottas will be Alpine's Fernando Alonso at P14 followed by  Antonio Giovinazzi in the Alfa Romeo, ahead of Yuki Tsunoda in the AlphaTauri. Mick Schumacher of Haas starts at P17, 30 years after his father Michael's F1 debut at Spa, ahead stays ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in the Alfa Romeo, and his Haas teammate Nikita Mazepin.