Kimi Antonelli arrived at Spa-Francorchamps leading the championship and left qualifying with the season's most emphatic pole lap, beating Max Verstappen by 0.317s — the widest pole margin of the 2026 campaign. The Mercedes rookie's 1:44.361 kept the team's remarkable qualifying streak alive and set up a front-row duel with Verstappen for Sunday's Belgian Grand Prix.
Antonelli made the lap sound harder than the gap suggested. "It's great to be on pole. It was not a very straightforward session, the track changed a lot," he told reporters. "We were able to improve lap by lap and to bring home pole, which was nice." He pointed to the middle sector as where the lap came alive: "The last lap was good. I improved a lot in sector two especially so it was a nice lap."
With Verstappen lining up alongside him, the 19-year-old was already thinking about the run to Les Combes. "Tomorrow is another day and obviously I have Max starting next to me so it's going to be important to get a good start and then be ahead into Turn Five," Antonelli said. He holds a 25-point lead in the standings, and Reuters noted the pole landed on his father's birthday — a neat footnote to a statement Saturday.
Verstappen, for his part, was honest about how he got so close. He credited a tow from Red Bull junior Isack Hadjar on his final run, without which the front row would have looked very different. "It was definitely helping me otherwise I would not be standing here," Verstappen said. "Otherwise I think I would be P6 or something."
Hadjar, who slotted his own car in to give Verstappen the slipstream, admitted the maneuver was awkward to execute with the 2026 power units. "On that first attempt in Q3, I had way too much power, so I pulled away from him," Hadjar explained. "And the second attempt, I didn't have enough, so if anything, he was catching me, and I couldn't tow him the whole way. It was very difficult to judge." Asked how Red Bull might thank him, he grinned and joked that the team could simply pay him back with money.
The grid behind the front row is scrambled. Lando Norris was third quickest on the road but carries a 10-place penalty for exceeding his control-electronics allocation, dropping him to 13th and promoting George Russell to third for the second Mercedes on the second row. Charles Leclerc qualified fifth.
For Antonelli, the margin matters less than the position. Spa's long straights make the tow a weapon, and Verstappen has already shown he will use everything Red Bull can give him. The championship leader starts on the clean side with the fastest car — but a first-corner mistake at the fastest track on the calendar could hand the initiative straight back to the driver in his mirrors.
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*Originally published on [Formula News One](https://newsformula.one/article/antonelli-beats-verstappen-to-spa-pole-by-seasons-biggest-margin). Visit for full coverage.*