Verstappen takes sprint race pole as Mercedes pair crash

The Red Bull driver and home favourite looked to have been eclipsed by a last-second Ferrari threat that peaked after two red flags in Q3 that were caused by Lewis Hamilton then George Russell shunting.

With defending champion Verstappen dropping time during the first half of the lap on his final dash, Leclerc might have seized top spot when he ran over the line to move into first place.

But Verstappen pulled it out of the bag by recovering the lost ground through the final sector to score what might have been an unlikely pole. He was the only driver to dip into the 1m04s.

Effectively, qualifying had boiled down to the final 2m30s following the Mercedes crashes.

Verstappen’s Q3 banker had him provisionally fastest as he left the Red Bull Ring pits behind both Ferraris.

Leclerc was first across the line to begin his final thrust for pole, only to drop a tenth in the first sector to Verstappen.

But he recovered that with a fastest overall final sector, while Verstappen was seemingly off the pace.

Leclerc therefore leapt to the top of the leaderboard on a 1m05.013s effort.

Sainz was a little adrift with a 1m05.066s, completed with three personal best sectors, that appeared to have cemented pole for Leclerc.

But then Verstappen pulled out a personal best final sector that was enough to offset the damage earlier in the lap and he bolted to a 1m04.984s to snare a remarkable sprint race pole by 0.19s.

Sainz will be joined on the second row of the grid by Sergio Perez as Russell’s pre-crash effort was suffice for fifth ahead of Esteban Ocon.

Kevin Magnussen eventually had the legs on Haas stablemate Mick Schumacher to end a close-run intra-team squabble in seventh, while Fernando Alonso was ninth.

Hamilton, meanwhile, was shuffled down to 10th as a legacy of his incident that occurred inside the first half of the final 10-minute part of qualifying.

In the first of the Mercedes shunts, Hamilton had brought out the red flags in Q3 with 5m29s to go after shunting into the barrier at Turn 7.

The seven-time champion, who had just oversteered out of Turn 6, was marginally wide of the apex, which caused the rear of his Mercedes W13 to snap out of control.

Hamilton was quick to correct it but as the car gripped, the steering lock applied projected him off the road and across the gravel.

He slammed sideway into the wall to break front- and rear-right corners.

The shunt was met by…