


Indeed, having pumped in an initial lap of 1m 12.272s in the pole shootout, Verstappen was afforded the luxury of backing off from his second attempt and still finished almost half a second up on home hero Sainz and Norris, who emerged as his nearest rivals in an action-packed session. Verstappen, who won the event in 20 but has never started it from the front of the grid, converted his practice clean sweep into P1 for Sunday’s race with a dominant performance across the grid-deciding hour.

Red Bull driver Max Verstappen charged to his first-ever Spanish Grand Prix pole position by comfortably getting the better of Ferrari rival Carlos Sainz and McLaren’s Lando Norris in Saturday’s qualifying session at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
