Verstappen Records His Fifth Pole Position Of 2024 Season With Perfect China Qualifying

Max Verstappen was once again faster than everyone else in the qualifying for the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix.

After completing a Sprint race at the Shanghai International Circuit, the Dutch driver was already in a winning mood, beating everyone by 13 seconds to take the win in the Sprint race.

In the qualifying, the three-time World Champion looked to keep his winning mood on Saturday, and he certainly did it early in the qualifying, winning both Q1 and Q2.

On the other hand, with Lewis Hamilton in Mercedes already out in Q1, after he missed out on a spot in Q2 by 0.116 seconds because of a lock-up into Turn 16, the top runners had one less opponent into the last stages of the qualifying.

It seemed that another top runner would be out of the fight for the pole position already in Q2, when Carlos Sainz in Ferrari spun out on the start-finish straight, triggering a red flag. However, the Spanish driver was able to restart his car and get it back to the garage.

All favourites apart for the seven-time World Champion were part of the Q3, and Verstappen started by sending his opponents an early message, setting a lap time of 1:33.977, which was 0.394 seconds ahead of the second Fernando Alonso in Aston Martin at the time.

On top of that, Ferrari drivers Sainz and Charles Leclerc seemed to be quite far off the pace, as did Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri in McLaren, and it seemed that no one would be able to stop Verstappen, not even his teammate Sergio Perez.

That proved to be true when Verstappen improved his lap even further in the last run to 1:33.660, taking the pole position for the 2024 Chinese Grand Prix, and he will be joined by teammate Perez on the front row, with Alonso and Norris behind them.