(Motorsports news) Max Verstappen bounced back from a miserable Melbourne Grand Prix to take an unbelievable pole at Imola in the wet. Ferrari's Charles Leclerc took P2 after being hampered by a flurry of late red flags, while Lando Norris managed an excellent P3 on the grid for McLaren, which was subsequently their best qualifying result this season. Leclerc easily topped Final Practice before Friday’s qualifying session. As the rain subsided and the other drivers emerged on soft tyres for Q1, in which Leclerc again set the fastest time to go half a second ahead of Verstappen. Q2 saw a greater threat of rain, but this time Verstappen topped those timesheets before Sainz crashed from P2 and then Q3 saw the clouds unleashed.

All the drivers opted for the Intermediates for the final shootout and it was there that Verstappen set the early benchmark of 1m 27.999,  just as Valtteri Bottas crashed out and brought out the fourth red flag of the afternoon with just three minutes remaining. Nearly eight-tenths of Leclerc had one last chance to take  provisional pole away from the reigning champion but he was left 0.799s off from Max’s time. Norris took third for McLaren but slid off track in the final seconds of Q3, while Kevin Magnussen finished a magnificent  fourth for Haas and Fernando Alonso rounded out the top five for Alpine.

In sixth it was Daniel Ricciardo while Sergio Perez could only manage P7 for Red Bull, ahead of Bottas who was eighth before crashing. Vettel managed to enter Q3 in his Aston Martin and took a respectable  P9 to leave Ferrari's Sainz in P10 after crashing out of Q2. But the surprise of the day was that both the Mercedes missed out on Q3, both George Russell (P11) and Lewis Hamilton (P13) in the drop zone before rain hit in Q2 as this was the first time since Japan 2012. Mick Schumacher was P12 while Zhou Guanyu was 14th as Lance Stroll was 15th for Aston Martin.

“It was tricky out there with the rain… It was very slippery to get the tyre temps to work. It was a hectic, long qualifying but of course at the end I was happy to be here. It’s an amazing track, it also really punishes you if you make a mistake, you know you can go in the wall. That’s what we like to make it really hard and difficult.

“Very pleased of course with pole position. I know tomorrow and Sunday will be different in terms of weather conditions but at least it’s a good start to the weekend” – Max Verstappen, Red Bull

Also read: Carlos Sainz extends contract with Scuderia Ferrari until 2024