![\"Need](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/8aff47dfc7ac747ddbbb13cf0e94434b379b4f56.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nVerstappen has been on pole position 44 times but just once at the Italian Grand Prix, where he has triumphed twice.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Need for speed: Max Verstappen is elated as he takes pole position.Credit: AP<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was tight, we were still lacking a tiny amount and we made some final changes which I think allowed me to push a bit more and that\u2019s exactly what you need in qualifying,\u201d Verstappen said. \u201cFor us, it\u2019s a great moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cHistorically this season the race has always been a little bit more complicated for us, but we are going to give it everything we have. That\u2019s the only thing we can do and then we will see what happens tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is a 45th pole position for Verstappen and a fifth this season, although only one of his two wins this year has come from the front of the grid.<\/p>\n
He will be joined on the front row on Sunday (Monday AEDT) by Norris, who trails Piastri by 34 points in the championship with nine races left of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cMax has been quick all weekend and it\u2019s never a surprise with Max,\u201d Norris said. \u201cIt was quite a session from me, up and down and too many mistakes here and there. But to put it together on the last lap, I was pretty happy with P2.\u201d<\/p>\n
Norris almost didn\u2019t make it out of Q2 as an early mistake meant he had to change tyres and he needed a tow from Piastri to get out of danger and go through in fifth place.<\/p>\n
Teenager Antonelli impresses<\/p>\n
Italian teenager Kimi Antonelli was seventh-fastest, just behind Mercedes teammate George Russell as he bounced back in front of his home crowd.<\/p>\n
The only Italian on the grid, Antonelli had a tough introduction last year as he crashed at Monza 10 minutes into his first F1 practice session. The 19-year-old also ended Leclerc\u2019s race at last weekend\u2019s Dutch Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
Russell and Antonelli will move up a place on the grid because of Hamilton\u2019s penalty, as will Gabriel Bortoleto, Fernando Alonso and Yuki Tsunoda, who round out the top 10.<\/p>\n
French rookie Isack Hadjar was \u201cover the moon\u201d at a first F1 podium last week. It was back to earth with a thud as the 20-year-old driver was eliminated in Q1 on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Hadjar would have started Sunday\u2019s race from the pit lane in any case, due to an engine change.<\/p>\n
\u201cI made a mistake on my lap and that\u2019s it. It\u2019s my first mistake in qualifying in a while so it happens,\u201d the young Racing Bulls driver said. \u201cI\u2019m starting last tomorrow so even if I put it on pole I wouldn\u2019t care because I\u2019m starting from the back.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Verstappen has been on pole position 44 times but just once at the Italian Grand Prix, where he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-123924","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-motor","11":"tag-motor-sports","12":"tag-motosport","13":"tag-motosports","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}