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Emilia-Romagna GP 2022: Red Bull’s Max Verstappen will start Saturday’s Sprint Race in pole position ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.
Max Verstappen took pole position for the Sprint race on Saturday after putting his Red Bull at the top of the timesheet in Q3 at Imola. However, Friday’s F1 qualifying session at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari track was hampered by 5 red flags amid rain interruptions. Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc will start the 100km dash in 2nd place with McLaren’s Lando Norris in 3rd.
Haas driver Kevin Magnussen continued his impressive showings on his return to F1 and will start the Spring from P4. Behind him was Alpine’s Fernando Alonso and McLaren’s Daniel Ricciardo. Verstappen’s teammate Sergio Perez will start the Spring in P7 followed by Valtteri Bottas, Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz, who had a crash in his Ferrari at the start of Q3.
Mercedes duo of Lewis Hamilton and George Russell were eliminated in Q2 as the Brackley-based team once again struggled to find the pace with the latter taking P13. Mick Schumacher will start in P12 between the two Mercedes drivers. Guanyu Zhou and Lance Stroll will start in the 14th and 15th place respectively.
Alex Albon’s Williams caught fire in Q1 and the British driver was out for the remainder of the two sessions. It was also a disappointing qualifying session for the AlphaTauri’s as well as Yuki Tsunoda and Pierre Gasly failed to get past the first round.
The result of Saturday’s sprint race will set the grid for Sunday’s main event at the Emilia-Romagna GP. The winner of the sprint will be awarded the event’s pole position accolade.
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