Hamilton earns pole in Jeddah after Verstappen hits wall on final attempt, relegating points leader to P3 on grid; Bottas will start P2 as Mercedes lock out front row
With time expired in Q3 during Saturday qualifying for the inaugural Saudi Arabian Grand Prix at the daunting, high speed Jeddah Corniche Street Circuit, Red Bull’s Max Verstappen looked to be setting a blistering lap good enough to snatch the pole position from Mercedes ace Lewis Hamilton. But the Dutch points leader stepped just that far over the line and smacked the wall at the last corner with his right rear tire, bringing his car and his qualifying attempt to an abrupt end. That meant Hamiton’s fastest lap held up as the pole time and Verstappen was also unable to jump the second Silver Arrow of Valtteri Bottas. So Bottas will line up alongside his team leader in P2 for a Mercedes front row lockout and Verstappen will start P3… assuming that he didn’t damage his gearbox badly enough to force a pre-race change, which would demote him a further five positions on a very tight and demanding circuit where overtaking will be at an absolute premium. With Verstappen leading Hamilton by a slim 8 points in the Drivers’ Championship, it is mathematically possible for the Dutchman to take the F1 crown in this penultimate race with a net gain of 18 points. But it is also quite a bit more likely that Hamilton, who has been on a superb run of form that has seen the English seven-time champ win the last two GP on the trot, will continue to apply the pressure, eat into Verstappen’s lead if not overtake him and, either way, push this titanic 2021 title tilt to the final round in Abu Dhabi next weekend.
Behind those front three, Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc landed safely in P4 after his teammate Carlos Sainz had several hairy moments of snap oversteer in Q2 and failed to advance out of that round. Sainz will have to figure out a way to move forward from P15 and help the team maximize points in their fierce fight with McLaren, which saw Lando Norris qualify in P7 and Daniel Ricciardo in P11. The second Red Bull of Sergio Perez struggled his way to a disappointing P5 qualifying time, while the two AlphaTauris performed well at this brand new track, with the talented Pierre Gasly setting the sixth fastest time in Q3 and rookie Yuki Tsunonda continuing his recent improvement by slotting in at a decent P8. Alpine’s Esteban Ocon and Alfa Romeo’s Antonio Giovinazzi qualified in P9 and P10 respectively.
Top 10 qualifiers for the Saudi Arabian GP:
| POS | DRIVER | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1:28.466 | 1:27.712 | 1:27.511 | |
| 2 | 1:28.057 | 1:28.054 | 1:27.622 | |
| 3 | 1:28.285 | 1:27.953 | 1:27.653 | |
| 4 | 1:28.310 | 1:28.459 | 1:28.054 | |
| 5 | 1:28.021 | 1:27.946 | 1:28.123 | |
| 6 | 1:28.401 | 1:28.314 | 1:28.125 | |
| 7 | 1:28.338 | 1:28.344 | 1:28.180 | |
| 8 | 1:28.503 | 1:28.222 | 1:28.442 | |
| 9 | 1:28.752 | 1:28.574 | 1:28.647 | |
| 10 | 1:28.899 | 1:28.616 | 1:28.754 |
Complete qualifying results available via Formula1.com.
Tomorrow’s race airs live on ESPN2 beginning at 12:30pm Eastern here in the States. It will be tense times all around with fingers crossed in the Red Bull garage that Verstappen didn’t seriously damage his car in that fateful late-quali tank slapper. Conversely, Hamilton will be looking to convert pole into the win and, perhaps with a bit of misfortune to his title rival, overhaul the Dutchman to take the lead going into the final contest. Also, if I were a betting man I would count on at least one Safety Car or Red Flag period to potentially shake things up — especially concerning is the pit out blend line where it seems to me cars exiting could come to grief with those steaming down the start-finish straight at full chat if everyone is not super careful. Hope to see you then to find out how it all shakes out!