F1 2026 Belgium GP LIVE: Race start time and schedule with Antonelli ahead of Verstappen – UK Times

“Firstly, a big thank you to the team for the incredible job they did getting the car back together after FP3. I’m grateful as always for all their hard work. The car lacked some stability in qualifying, and we knew that the first and last sectors would be our biggest challenge, but we managed to extract the maximum from today’s package.

“We’re starting in a decent position tomorrow and I’ll be giving everything I can to move us forward.

“We have slightly mixed feelings after this session, as we knew before the weekend that this track would be quite difficult for us, although overall, I think our performance was decent.

“If you consider that Verstappen benefited from a slipstream and Charles had to deal with the yellow flag situation in which he probably lost one place, I’d say it wasn’t a bad session for us. As for Lewis, the team did a great job to get the car fixed in time after his crash.

“It’s never ideal to go into quali like this but he has had good pace all weekend.Now focus on ourselves, knowing there is a long race ahead of us tomorrow. We made a good step forward after FP3 and will fight, knowing we always perform a bit better in the race. It will be difficult for all the teams to decide the best way to deploy energy to either defend or attack.”

“We’ve not changed anything, nice to be standing here, not nice knowing I have to go 10 places back. We made the most of it, still a very good qualifying. I performed well all weekend so far and we can have a good race tomorrow.

“The car is performing well, there’s plenty of opportunities, a long race, put on a bit of a show for you.”

Kimi Antonelli raced to an emphatic pole position for Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix to leave his world championship rivals trailing in his wake.

The 19-year-old Mercedes F1 driver headed into qualifying as the man to beat after topping two of the three practice sessions in Spa-Francorchamps and he delivered on his status with a brilliant lap.

Lando Norris qualified third, four tenths down on Antonelli, but the world champion will line up from 13th as he serves a 10-place grid penalty for exceeding his allocated number of engine parts.

1. Kimi Antonelli (Mercedes)

2. Max Verstappen (Red Bull)

3. George Russell (Mercedes)

4. Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)

5. Lewis Hamilton (Ferrari)

6. Oscar Piastri (McLaren)

7. Arvid Lindblad (Racing Bulls)

8. Gabriel Bortoleto (Audi)

9. Liam Lawson (Racing Bulls)

10. Pierre Gasly (Alpine)

11. Franco Colapinto (Alpine)

12. Nico Hulkenberg (Audi)

13. Lando Norris (McLaren) *

14. Carlos Sainz (Williams)

16. Alex Albon (Williams)

18. Valtteri Bottas (Cadillac)

19. Sergio Perez (Cadillac)

20. Lance Stroll (Aston Martin)*

21. Isack Hadjar (Red Bull)**

22. Fernando Alonso (Aston Martin)***

*Norris and Stroll have a 10-place grid penalty and will start in 13th

**Hadjar has a 30-place grid penalty and will start in 21st

***Alonso had a 20-place grid penalty and will start 22nd

“It’s another tough Saturday, but we know this is our situation and we just focused on delivering a well-executed Qualifying session. Tyre preparation was good for both Lance and Fernando, and they both placed their cars well to pick up a tow on their best laps.

“With our current performance level, it won’t be an easy race, but we will focus to extract what we can tomorrow. Just one more race and then we can focus on Budapest.”

“It was difficult out there today in Qualifying, but it’s as we expected. We still try to do our best and this has been the case over the last ten races for us. We will make sure we maximise everything tomorrow and continue learning what we can to find every bit of performance. Tomorrow will be about doing everything we can at the highest level.”

“I was very satisfied with my first lap in Q3, while on my second lap I lost some time by lifting when I saw the yellow flag being waved at the pit lane for Isack (Hadjar). There may have been a few hundredths to gain there, but there wasn’t much more to extract from our car today.

“Our pace overall looks quite solid, even if our competitors are performing at a very high level and there is still a significant gap to them. We will see what we can bring home tomorrow. This track doesn’t really suit the characteristics of our car, so it could be challenging to overtake and defend during the race, especially in the straight lines.

“We will push to gain some positions at the start and take it from there. A podium would be a good result for us.”

“Mercedes are very very fast, they’re just the quickest team in qualifying.

“Definitely think we can go forward tomorrow, we’ll definitely try our best.”