Carlos Sainz on pole at Ferrari’s home race

Carlos Sainz will be on pole position at Ferrari’s home race after setting the fastest time in qualifying at the Italian Grand Prix.

Having shown strong pace throughout practice, the Spaniard narrowly beat Max Verstappen to pole, with teammate Charles Leclerc starting on the second row.

Esteban Ocon sustained damage to his car, and attempted to help teammate Pierre Gasly by giving him a tow, but both were out at the end of the first part of qualifying.

Lance Stroll had no running on Friday, with Aston Martin having put reserve driver Felipe Drugovich in the car for FP1 before a fault preventing Stroll heading out in second practice, and it appeared to affect his pace in qualifying as he’ll start at the back of the grid.

Ferrari appeared to have good pace, but a directive from race control meant all drivers had to set a minimum lap time to prevent queuing, with stewards investigating whether the Ferrari cars breached this.

Despite concern over a potential penalty, Ferrari continued to push for pole in Q3, with Sainz setting a time just 0.013s faster than Verstappen.

Alex Albon’s strong qualifying form continued, as he’ll line up on the third row of the grid, while Oscar Piastri found good pace to outqualify teammate Lando Norris.

Stewards confirmed at the end of qualifying that the potential minimum time breach by Ferrari wouldn’t be investigated further, confirming that Sainz and Leclerc will hold on to their qualifying positions.

Provisional qualifying result:

1 Carlos Sainz (Ferrari)

2. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

3. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)

4. George Russell (Mercedes)

5. Sergio Perez (Red Bull)

6. Alex Albon (Williams)

7. Oscar Piastri (McLaren)

8. Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes)

9. Lando Norris (McLaren)

10. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)

11. Yuki Tsunoda (AlphaTauri)

12. Liam Lawson (AlphaTauri)

13. Nico Hulkenberg (Haas)

14. Valtteri Bottas (Alfa Romeo)

15. Logan Sargeant (Williams)

16. Guanyu Zhou (Alfa Romeo)

17. Pierre Gasly (Alpine)

18. Esteban Ocon (Alpine)

19. Kevin Magnussen (Haas)

20. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)