Piastri beats Verstappen to Imola pole after Tsunoda crash

Grand Prix Emilia-Romagna

Imola Date: May 18 Start time for the race: Sunday at 14:00 BST

McLaren’s Oscar Piastri beat Red Bull’s Max Verstappen to pole position at the Grand Prix Emilia-Romagna in a qualifying session that featured an enormous accident for Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda.

Despite encountering traffic in the final two corners and failing to improve his time in the final sector, Piastri edged Verstappen by 0.034 seconds.

Lando Norris of Verstappen and McLaren’s final races were punctured by George Russell of Mercedes, who placed fourth.

And the surprise of qualifying was Ferrari’s failure to topple any of its rivals, as well as Aston Martin’s team’s performance.

Fernando Alonso placed fifth in the Aston Martin team’s best performance of the season, while team-mate Lance Stroll placed eighth in order.

At Ferrari’s opening home race of the season, Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc were unable to finish in 11th and 12th, underscoring their ongoing struggles.

The second red flag for a terrifying accident for Tsunoda was during the session, which was the Villeneuve chicane’s car being launched into the air from the tyre barrier.

It savaged and turned around before reversing upon landing. The Japanese were unharmed and able to leave the collision.

He claimed that the crash was “just really stupid, pushing unnecessarily hard” at the time when the setup had undergone a number of significant adjustments following a challenging final practice session.

Franco Colapinto, an Alpine debutant, also spun into the barriers, this time at the Tamburello chicane, making it even more impressive.

Verstappen and McLarens always appeared to be competing for the pole position, and the Red Bull driver ran the fastest on the first runs of qualifying for pole.

Piastri was leading the final two laps after the first two sectors, but as he approached the two Rivazza left-handers that ended the lap, he noticed a run of about five cars preparing for the final lap.

Although he could not have improved his time in Verstappen’s lap, his first two sectors had been sufficient to put him ahead of him.

The Dutchman did improve on his final lap, but only by 0.07 seconds, and he only managed to finish second.

Russell used the medium tyres on his final lap, akin to Aston Martin’s more frequent use of mediums throughout the session, but Norris, who was third fastest on his first run, was unable to improve.

“Very tough session with the red flags and the tires,” Piastri said. Today, the C6 (compound, soft) was a real mystery.

The team did a good job of putting the car in a good position. The final turn was good; however, I only had four cars in the final corner, which didn’t help.

Verstappen once said, “Everything was going really well, just the softest compound,” and it’s very difficult to keep them alive in the lap. The tires fell off me after Sector One, which was good. George sat down for a medium. For this track, the softness was perhaps a little too soft.

In an effort to stop the race from being the locked-in one-stop strategy it has always used at Imola, Pirelli brought the three softest tyres of their range to this race.

Aston Martin leaned into it throughout qualifying, but that seems unlikely to work given how well the medium compound is.

This weekend, the Aston Martin received a significant upgrade, including new floors and engine covers inspired by design legend Adrian Newey, who became the team’s managing technical partner in March.

As they turned to them for their final runs in each session, Alonso and Stroll made it obvious that they were using the mediums.

Alonso rose from the seventh place he had secured with soft tyres on his first run to an excellent fifth on his second run despite the team’s lack of brand-new mediums for the top 10 shootout.

Alonso said, “It’s a little bit better than expected, both cars in Q3, and it felt competitive.” We’ll see how things turn out tomorrow. Without a doubt, the new components we brought here are performing well.

Ferrari’s final run in the second session was delayed by failing to fit their new tires into the appropriate temperature window.