Leclerc takes pole for Ferrari on home soil ahead of Verstappen and Sainz 

Charles Leclerc handed Ferrari a home pole position in a tightly contested qualifying session for the 2022 FIA Formula 1 Italian Grand Prix, with the Monegasque driver finished just over a tenth of a second ahead of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen who will slip back down the grid as one of a number of driver with penalties for tomorrow’s race at Monza.

At the start of Q1 Verstappen jumped to the top of the order with a lap of 1:22.023. he was joined at the top of the timesheet by team-mate Sergio Pérez, with the Mexican crossing the line just five hundredths of a second off the Dutchman.

Sainz then gave his Ferrari team-mate Leclerc a strong tow and the Monegasque driver took P1 with a lap of 1:21.280. Sainz, who will drop towards the back of the grid, slotted into second ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell.

Pérez went for a second run and he improved to 1:21.495 to take P3 but he soon dropped to fourth place as Verstappen improved to 1:20.992, more than two tenths ahead of Leclerc.

Eliminated at the end of the final runs of Q1 were Williams’ Nicholas Latifi, Aston Martin’s Sebastian Vettel and Lance Stroll and the Haas cars of Kevin Magnussen and Mick Schumacher.

At the start of Q2, Pérez on new softs, took top spot with a lap of 1:21.358 but Verstappen immediately went quicker with a lap of 1:20.878. Sainz, though, rose to P1 ahead of Leclerc who ran just 0.057s ahead of Verstappen.

Once again at the end of the session, the top four stayed in their garages. And as the final times arrived there were no improvements significant enough to dislodge any of the top drivers. Behind them, Hamilton, also set for penalties, went through in P5 and Russell progressed in sixth place ahead of the McLaren pairing of Lando Norris and Daniel Ricciardo, while Alonso and Gasly were ninth and tenth.

Ruled out at the end of Q2 were Esteban Ocon in the second Alpine, Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas, Williams’ Nyck de Vries, standing for the unwell Alex Albon, Zhou Guanyu in the other Alfa Romeo and AlphaTauri’s Yuki Tsunoda. The 15th-placed Japanese driver, who will start from the back of the grid due to penalties, did not set a time in the segment.

At the start of Q3 Sainz took provisional pole with a good lap of 1:20.584, almost two tenths of a second ahead of Leclerc with Verstappen in third place, half a second ahead of Pérez who claimed fourth place.

Leclerc, though, found more pace on his final flyer and he claimed pole position with a time of 1:20.161. Max got closest to the Ferrari driver and a superb final flyer, in a more draggy car, handed him P2 in the session, just 0.145s behind his rival. Sainz took third place ahead of Checo with Hamilton fifth ahead of Russell.