It looked as though Mercedes had the advantage going into Q3, but a combination of fantastic teamwork from Red Bull and a brilliant lap from Verstappen enabled him to snatch his 10th pole of the season ahead of his championship rival. ꦉ;

Verstappen was boosted by a tow from Red B𒅌ull teammate Sergio Perez on his first run to go half a second 🦄clear of Hamilton, before the Mercedes driver responded with an improvement on his final Q3 effort. 

But it was not enough to prevent Verstappen from securing a comfortable pole with the Dutchman finishing qualifyin�✤�g 0.371s faster than Hamilton. 

It s♐ets up a mouth-watering prospect w😼ith the two championship protagonists sharing the front row of the grid heading into their winner-takes-all contest. 

But Verstappen will start Sunday’s race on softer tyres than Hamilton after Red Bull opted for a different strategic approach when Verstꩲappen flat-spoওtted his medium tyres in Q2 and switched to softs. 

Verstappen will look to take advantage of the grippier soft tyres to maintain his positionꦬ ahead of Hamilton, who will start the r⛄ace on mediums. 

Behind the battle f🐼or pole, Lando Norris produced a stunning late lap in his McLar🎐en to snatch third on the grid ahead of Perez’s Red Bull. 

Carlos Sainz put his Ferrari fifth ahead of Valtte❀ri Bottas, who✃ was only sixth-fastest for Mercedes. 

The second Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was seventh, ahead of AlphaTauri’s Y𒅌uki Tsunoda and Esteban Ocon’s Alpine, while Daniel Ricciardo completed the top-10 for McLare✱n. 

Fernando Alonso missed out on a Q3 spot by just 0.012s as he took 11th for Alpine, ahead♉ of AlphaT🐬auri’s Pierre Gasly. 

Aston Martin’s Lance Stroll outpaced Antonio Giovinazzi’s Alfa Romeo or 13th, while Sebastian Vettel was eliminated in 15th after getting heavily 🐠compromised in a messy traffic queue at the end of Q2. 

Nicholas Latifi out-qualified George Russell for their last race as Williams teammates before Russell makes the switch to Me🍷rcedes. 

Just 0.085s separated the Williams pairing as Latifi secured🎀 16th place ahead of Russell.&nꦛbsp;

Alfa Romeo’s Kimi Raikkonen was 18thꦜ-fastest in his final F1 qualifying session before the Finn calls time on his illustrious career following Sunday’s grand prix. 

Raikkonen ended up just a tenth clear of🦂 Mick Schumacher, who was over seven-tenths quicker than Haas teammate Nikita Mazepin.