Spanish GP: Verstappen on pole as Gasly and Russell go to stewards

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen has secured his first pole position at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya as Alpine’s Pierre Gasly and Mercedes’ George Russell are summoned to the stewards.

Q1

Ahead of the pit exit light set to go green, the bulk of the field peeled out onto the pit lane as Mercedes George Russell voiced that it was ‘spitting’ in the pit lane. Despite the damp conditions, the drivers were out on the red-ringed soft compound tyres.

Although the field were on out laps, it didn’t stop Alpha Tauri’s Yuki Tsunoda from being slapped with a spin. The Japanese driver was hit with a tank slapper on the exit of turn 10, as he hit a damp section of the circuit. Fortunately, Tsunoda was able to continue on.

Tsunoda was not the only driver to be slapped with a spin on the exit of turn 10 as his teammate, Nyck De Vries, and Alfa Romeo’s Valtteri Bottas suffered a similar fate at the same corner. Further back on the circuit, Williams’ Alexander Albon skipped across the gravel on the exit of turn five but the London-born driver was able to safely rejoin the circuit.

As a result of the amount of gravel out on track, across the circuit, the red flag was brought out. Only a handful of drivers had put a lap time on the board while the rest were caught out by the red flag.

On the restart, a yellow flag was brought out again at turn 10 as De Vries had another moment at turns 10 and 11. Alpine’s Pierre Gasly was on a slow lap but after he let the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc through, the Frenchman got in the way of Ferrari’s home hero Carlos Sainz.

The Spaniard called for Gasly to be handed a penalty as the Ferrari driver had to lift on the fast-sweeping double right-hander. The incident was set to be investigated after the session. Gasly was later involved in another incident, with Verstappen, for impeding.

It was another incident, against Gasly, which will be investigated by the stewards.

The big shocker in Q1 was Leclerc who was knocked out of Q1 as the Monegasque split the two Williams of Albon (18th) and Logan Sargeant (20th).

Eliminated: 

16. Valtteri Bottas, Alfa Romeo

17. Kevin Magnussen, Haas

18. Alexander Albon, Williams

19. Charles Leclerc, Ferrari

20. Logan Sargeant, Williams

Q2

As the pit exit light returned to green, to signal the start of Q2, the Red Bull duo of Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez pulled the field back out onto the circuit. Naturally, Verstappen was the first to put in a lap time and the Dutchman put in an impressive 1:12.760 lap.

After the first set of banker laps, Verstappen remained on the top of the timing sheets as Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton jumped up to second – two-tenths behind the Red Bull driver, and Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso rounded out the top three.

In the final two minutes of qualifying, Perez lost rear traction as he downshifted into the corner into turn five. However, the Red Bull car bucked back and Perez found himself in the gravel. Fortunately, the Mexican driver was able to coast his car back to the track.

Despite Perez’s best efforts, the Mexican driver was only able to top 11th on the timing board ahead of Russell, Zhou, De Vries and Tsunoda.

Replays soon showed that the Mercedes duo of Russell and Hamilton had come together down the main straight. The #63 Mercedes kinked to the right of the circuit which allowed Hamilton to squeeze down Russell’s left-hand side, but as the younger Briton peeled back to the left – the two inevitably made contact.

Russell was able to continue on with no issues but Hamilton had lost his front right-hand endplate. Russell was quickly put under investigation for the incident.

Eliminated: 

11. Sergio Perez, Red Bull

12. George Russell, Mercedes (pending investigation)

13. Guanyu Zhou, Alfa Romeo

14. Nyck De Vries, Alpha Tauri

15. Yuki Tsunoda, Alpha Tauri 

Q3

Unlike the prior two-thirds, no one rushed out onto the circuit but it wasn’t long before the Pirelli rubber bit into the circuit asphalt.

As the bulk of the field put in their lap times, only one man dominated the circuit: Verstappen. The reigning world champion put in a stunning 1:12.272 lap which was nine-tenths faster than his closest rival, Hamilton, while the rest stood over one second behind – apart from Hulkenberg and Alonso who were yet to set a lap time.

However, Verstappen opted to use a fresh set of soft compound tyres while the rest of the order opted to use their used sets.

While the majority of the field sat patiently in their respective garages, Hulkenberg had the circuit all to himself as the clock ticked down. With a fast lap under his belt, the German went third fastest – nine-tenths slower than Verstappen and slightly slower than second-placed Hamilton.

On the final set of laps for the field, Alonso finally peeled out onto the track to a standing ovation from the spectating crowd. On his first and final timed lap, Alonso was able to provisionally get up to fourth but at the end of qualifying, the Spaniard had dropped down to ninth – behind Hulkenberg yet ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri.

Top 10:

10. Oscar Piastri, McLaren

9. Fernando Alonso, Aston Martin

8. Nico Hulkenberg, Haas

7. Esteban Ocon, Alpine

6. Lance Stroll, Aston Martin

5. Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes

4. Pierre Gasly, Alpine (pending investigation)

3. Lando Norris, McLaren

2. Carlos Sainz, Ferrari

1. Max Verstappen, Red Bull

That’s all for the article: Spanish GP: Verstappen on pole as Gasly and Russell go to stewards!

Read more Formula 1 here:

• Spanish GP: Verstappen fastest in FP2 one-tenth ahead of Alonso
• Spanish GP: Verstappen flies to the top seven-tenths ahead of Perez
• Monaco GP: Leclerc slapped with 3-place grid drop after Norris impede
• Monaco GP: Verstappen narrowly takes pole by 0.084s over Alonso
• Mercedes lift covers off new upgrades ahead of Monaco GP
• Aston Martin F1 snatch up Honda ahead of 2026 season

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