(BBC) – Max Verstappen set the fastest time in Belgian Grand Prix qualifying but a grid penalty means Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc will start from pole position.
The Red Bull driver beat Leclerc by 0.820 seconds on a drying track but has a five-place grid drop for using too many gearbox components this season.

Leclerc edged the second Red Bull of Sergio Perez by 0.057secs with Lewis Hamilton’s Mercedes fourth fastest.
Carlos Sainz was fifth from McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris.
It was a day defined by the weather, but the rain that some felt might threaten qualifying because of reduced visibility from spray in wet conditions stopped in the hour before qualifying and the track progressively dried through the session.

Verstappen is expected to win the race from sixth on the grid, regardless of the weather, so superior has his and Red Bull’s performance been so far this season.
But a second pole of 2023 for Leclerc is a major boost for the Monaco-born driver, who was Verstappen’s closest title rival last year but has cut a dispirited figure for much of this season because of Ferrari’s failure to live up to their own expectations.

It will be all the sweeter for Leclerc, who struggled in exactly similar damp conditions in the races in Spain, Canada and Austria before realising he had a problem and needed to address it.
“Not a bad qualifying for us especially in those conditions,” Leclerc said. “It’s always difficult to put everything together. I put a lot of work into those conditions as I wasn’t comfortable a few races ago.”

Leclerc was the first driver to set a lap on the final runs, meaning he missed the best of the circuit, but he acknowledged that Verstappen was out of reach.
“We went a bit early [for the final run],” he said. “Having said that, pole was definitely not on for us but we could have been closer. Let’s see how it goes.”

Verstappen came close to being eliminated in the second knockout session, and argued with his engineer Gianpiero Lambiase over the radio afterwards about the run plan they had chosen.
Leclerc was faster than the double champion on the first runs in the final session by about 0.1secs but Verstappen said he found the confidence to push harder on his final set of tyres.

“To be on pole again, I know I have to drop back with the penalty but it was the best I could do today.”
Outside the top battle for pole, Piastri impressed in the McLaren, the Australian out-pacing team-mate Norris throughout after the Briton ran wide at the second Stavelot corner in the first part of qualifying.