Verstappen rises above wreck-strewn Imola GP qualifying

Max Verstappen snatched pole position for the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix from Charles Leclerc in a chaotic qualifying session that featured five red flags and several bands of rain.

The Dutchman had just snatched to spot in Q3 with a time of 1m27.999s when the penultimate of those red flags was thrown, for Valtteri Bottas’s stopped Alfa Romeo car at Variante Alta with just under three minutes remaining.

The suspension proved decisive. Drivers had been needing multiple push laps to generate tire temperature on a track that was struggling to reach 60 degrees F, and a new band of rain arrived just minutes before Q3 was set to resume.