Sergio Perez has claimed pole position for the second year running in Jeddah, ahead of Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc, who will drop to ten places on the grid as a result of a grid penalty.
Verstappen dominated FP1, FP2 and FP3 and was continuing to show dominating pace in Q1 but the mechanical issue meant that he couldn’t retain his dominance for the remainder of qualifying.
Aston Martin’s Fernando Alonso will line up alongside Perez at the front of the grid, ahead of Mercedes’ George Russell. Leclerc’s teammate Carlos Sainz qualified in P5 but will start on the second row as a result of his teammates’ penalty.
Q1 saw a series of spins from the drivers including Nyck De Vries, Alonso and Logan Sargeant and Lando Norris
Norris hit the wall which saw his qualifying come to a quick end after damaging the car meaning the McLaren driver qualified in P19.
Norris’ teammate Oscar Piastri made it to Q3 for the first time and qualified in ninth showing that there may be potential in the McLaren car.
Sargeant had a poor qualifying session after bringing out the first yellow flag of qualifying after spinning, having his lap deleted for track limits and then facing technical problems seeing his qualifying come to an end with no time set within the 107% rule.
Both Alfa Romeo and Haas couldn’t make it out of Q2, but a better performance from the Alpine team saw both of their drivers make it to Q3 with Pierre Gasly qualifying in tenth and Esteban Ocon qualifying in seventh.
Here is how the leaderboard looked at the end of Q3:
