F1 leader Antonelli celebrates dad's birthday with Spa pole
SPA-FRANCORCHAMPS, Belgium, July 18 : Formula One leader Kimi Antonelli celebrated his father's birthday by taking pole position for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix with Red Bull's Max Verstappen alongside on the front row and Mercedes teammate and title rival George Russell right behind.
McLaren's reigning world champion Lando Norris was third fastest, but has a 10-place grid drop, promoting Russell with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc, winner of the previous race at Silverstone, next to him in fourth.
Mercedes have taken pole for all 10 races so far this season and 19-year-old Italian Antonelli has provided six of them.
"Nice birthday present for your old man," his race engineer Peter 'Bono' Bonnington said over the team radio.
"Yeah, happy birthday dad," replied the happy Italian.
ITALIAN HUNGRY FOR SIXTH WIN
"It was not a very straightforward session, the track changed a lot," Antonelli told reporters later. "But tomorrow is another day and obviously I have Max starting next to me so it's going to be important to get a good start and then be ahead into Turn Five."
The Italian has won five races so far and leads Russell by 25 points in the championship. He is hungry for another win to stretch that advantage after failing to score in two of the last three races.
Norris had been on provisional pole after the first flying laps but then Verstappen and Antonelli went faster, the latter producing a one minute and 44.361 second effort around the longest and second-fastest lap on the calendar.
"It is nice to be standing here, it is not nice knowing I have to go 10 places back tomorrow," commented Norris.
"It is unfortunate that it is not where we will be starting tomorrow because it would be nice to have a little fight with these guys but we made the most of it."
Verstappen had been given an aerodynamic tow by teammate Isack Hadjar, who has an impossible 30-place grid drop for an engine and multiple component changes and is likely to start 21st due to other penalties.
The four-time world champion's time was still 0.317 slower than Antonelli's best.
"It was definitely helping me, otherwise I would not be standing here," the Belgian-born Dutch driver said of the tow. "Otherwise I think I would be like P6, or something.
"Tomorrow I think I'll be looking in my mirrors at the people around me, but at least today we had a really good result."
Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton, chasing a record sixth Belgian GP win, will start fifth with McLaren's Oscar Piastri sixth and Racing Bulls' British rookie Arvid Lindblad seventh in the team's only upgraded car.
Hamilton had crashed in final practice, but his mechanics had the car ready for him to start qualifying.
"The boys did a mega job to fix my damage after P3 (third practice)," said the seven-time world champion.
"The car was feeling amazing in P3 and I really felt confident, not that we'd be fighting for pole because I think Mercedes are too fast, but I definitely think with the car that we had in P3 we probably could have been third or something like that."
Ferrari have won two of the last three races and are chasing leaders Mercedes in the constructors' standings.
Audi's Gabriel Bortoleto qualified eighth with Racing Bulls' Liam Lawson set to start ninth, despite failing to make the final phase, and Alpine's Pierre Gasly 10th.
Nico Hulkenberg's Audi stopped on track in the second phase with a hydraulics leak.
