Max Verstappen took another step towards his third world title on Friday, after taking pole position for this weekend's F1 Grand Prix in Qatar.
The Dutchman dominated the session and will start at the front alongside Mercedes driver George Russell on Sunday.
Verstappen said:
Verstappen is on the verge of the world championship, and a sixth-place finish in Saturday’s sprint race would wrap up the title for the 26-year-old.
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Russell out qualified his teammate, seven-time world champion, Lewis Hamilton to start second and was delighted with how the session panned out.
Said Russell when asked if he was surprised to be on the front row:
“We’ve got our sights set on a strong result now that the McLarens are behind us. We are going to have a bit of a fight on our hands because they are really quick, but we’ve got two sleeps before we can think about that.”
Piastri said: “We obviously get another crack at it tomorrow in [the sprint shootout] and then the sprint too, so we’ll see what we can do. It’s very tight and it’s so easy to make mistakes. The track’s very slippery too, so not making things easy for us. But we’ll try again obviously.”