Piastri on pole for Emilia-Romagna GP as Ferrari struggles

IMOLA, Italy (AP) — Oscar Piastri fought his way through traffic to take pole position in the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix on Saturday as Ferrari had a terrible session, with neither car in the top 10.

Piastri admitted he “thought it was going to unravel” when he approached slower cars toward the end of his final qualifying lap but it proved enough as Max Verstappen fell just .034 of a second short of the Australian’s time. That gave standings leader Piastri a big advantage in Sunday’s race at a track where overtaking was notably difficult.

“The lap was good. I had about four cars in the last corner, which didn’t help, but it was enough,” Piastri said. “Very, very happy with a job well done and excited for tomorrow now.”

George Russell took third for Mercedes, pushing Piastri’s McLaren teammate and title rival Lando Norris down to fourth. Norris was left to rue another underwhelming result in qualifying this year.

Italian fans disappointed

Italian fans were looking forward to Lewis Hamilton’s first competitive Formula 1 session in a Ferrari in Italy. It soon turned out Ferrari didn’t have the pace to be competitive.

Hamilton, his Ferrari teammate Charles Leclerc and F1’s sole Italian driver, Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli, all qualified outside the top 10.

“My god, my god, my god,” Leclerc repeated over the radio in obvious frustration. Brake and tire performance have been repeat concerns for Ferrari this week.

The Ferrari duo and Antonelli were caught out by rivals improving their times at the end of the second part of qualifying, with Leclerc 11th, Hamilton 12th and Antonelli 13th.

The big winners were Aston Martin and Williams, which got both of their cars into the top 10 shootout. Driving an Aston Martin fitted with extensive upgrades for this week’s race, Fernando Alonso qualified an impressive fifth.

If he can hold on in Sunday’s race, it would be a breakthrough for Aston Martin and Alonso, who has yet to score a point. The two-time world champion has won at Imola before, but it was 20 years ago.

Tsunoda and Colapinto crash

The narrow, bumpy Imola track punishes even small mistakes harshly as showed in heavy crashes for Yuki Tsunoda and Franco Colapinto, two drivers under pressure to perform.

Tsunoda’s car rolled upside down after hitting the barriers, prompting concern from other drivers. Tsunoda was able to walk away and was later checked out at the medical center before returning to the paddock.

Tsunoda hadn’t set a time so the Japanese driver qualified last for his fifth race with Red Bull since replacing Liam Lawson in March. He’s struggled to keep up with his champion teammate Verstappen.

Colapinto’s return to F1 with Alpine got off to a bad start when he spun into the wall, causing heavy damage to his car. The Argentine driver said he was unhurt, and qualified 15th, but was later dropped one place for an unrelated pit lane infringement.

That crash also knocked out Oliver Bearman after a review showed the Haas driver completed his lap a split second after the red flag for Colapinto’s incident. It would have put him 12th in the first session, but instead he was eliminated in 19th.

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AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing