SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium \u2014 Kimi Antonelli beat a display of Red Bull formation flying to take pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix in qualifying on Saturday and boost his\u00a0Formula\u00a01 title charge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Max Verstappen had set the fastest time after smart coordination with Red Bull teammate Isack Hadjar to give him the strongest possible slipstream on his lap.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mercedes driver\u00a0Antonelli\u00a0found a new level of pace on his lap to beat Verstappen by 0.317 of a second and dedicated the pole position as a birthday present to his father Marco, who turned 61 on Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet’s go, man, let’s go,\u201d he said over the radio.<\/p>\n
With Verstappen starting second and teammate and title rival George Russell third on the grid, Antonelli is hoping he can cling on to the lead in the long run-up into the forested hills on the first lap Sunday and that if there’s overtaking, \u201chopefully it’s just off in the distance.\u201d Beyond that, he said, he’ll just focus on managing his tire wear.<\/p>\n
Verstappen said Hadjar’s help was the difference between being second and sixth but that his Red Bull still can’t keep up with Antonelli’s Mercedes in race conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did amazing. I initially thought \u2018Oh my god, it\u2019s too close.\u2019 Actually it worked out well to the last corner. It was close but I trusted him,” Verstappen said of Hadjar, who had nothing to gain because of a penalty which sends him to the back of the grid.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe gap in qualifying even with a massive tow is still three-tenths, so I don\u2019t really expect to race (Mercedes) tomorrow,\u201d Verstappen added.<\/p>\n
Lando Norris qualified third-fastest for McLaren but a\u00a0grid penalty means he drops 10 places. Antonelli\u2019s teammate George Russell is set to move up to third on the grid, but once again he struggled to match the 19-year-old Italian.<\/p>\n
Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton were fifth and sixth on a disappointing day for Ferrari following Leclerc’s surprise win at the\u00a0British Grand Prix. Even getting on track was a small victory for Hamilton after a crash in practice meant Ferrari had to rebuild his car in a hurry.<\/p>\n
Russell closed the gap to Antonelli to 25 points in the standings at the British Grand Prix after the latest in a series of car problems for the Italian, but has consistently been off his teammate’s pace, except for a win at the\u00a0Austrian Grand Prix\u00a0last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium \u2014 Kimi Antonelli beat a display of Red Bull formation flying to take pole position for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810422,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[441],"tags":[49,48,578,576,577,82],"class_list":["post-810421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810421\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810422"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}