MONZA, Italy (Reuters) -Red Bull's reigning champion Max Verstappen set the fastest lap in Formula One history to snatch pole position from McLaren's title contender Lando Norris at the Italian Grand Prix on Saturday.
Norris had gone top with a final flying lap but Verstappen pulled out a moment of magic to cross the line in one minute 18.792 seconds, 0.077 quicker and at an average speed of 264.681kph.
"Yes guys! That's unbelievable. A really good job. It worked out. It's all good," exclaimed Verstappen over the team radio.
It was the 45th pole of the four-times champion's career, fifth of the campaign and first since Silverstone in July.
He has, however, so far converted only one of this season's poles into victory in the face of McLaren domination.
"I think that final lap was pretty decent," Verstappen told reporters later. "To get pole here for us is big. It's not always been a good track for us, especially last year was quite a bit of a disaster."
The previous fastest lap of 1:18.887 was also set at the 'Temple of Speed' by seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton when he took pole for Mercedes in 2020 at an average 264.362kph.
Norris's final lap of 1:18.869 was also inside Hamilton's old record.
"Max has been quick all weekend and it's never a surprise with Max," said Norris, who was also slower than Verstappen in the first two parts of qualifying and looked in danger of missing the cut in the second phase before moving up to fifth.
"It was quite a session from me, up and down and too many mistakes here and there. But to put it together on the last lap, I was pretty happy with P2 (second)."
McLaren's Australian championship leader Oscar Piastri qualified third and 0.113 slower than Norris, with Ferrari's Charles Leclerc -- last year's winner at his team's home race -- completing the second row.
Sunday's race is set to be another big battle between Piastri and Norris, who is 34 points behind the Australian after the agony of mechanical retirement at last weekend's Dutch Grand Prix.
Piastri said his had been a 'tidy' lap.
"The result is not a big surprise but obviously we would have loved to have been a little bit further up," said the winner of seven races so far this year.
McLaren have won the last five and have had seven one-two finishes so far.
HAMILTON'S GRID DROP
Hamilton was fifth fastest for Ferrari but has a grid penalty carried over from last weekend's Dutch Grand Prix that drops him to 10th.
The Briton said he was still pleased with the progress through the weekend.
"I've been relatively happy with the car," he said. "I think it was the most we could get from it.
"With the penalty, and everyone being so close, it's going to be tough to overtake everybody ahead of me but we've got a good top line of speed so I'm really hoping that I can try to make up some ground."
George Russell, fastest in the first phase on medium tyres before the team switched him to softs, will start fifth for Mercedes with Italian rookie teammate Kimi Antonelli alongside.
"Our race pace will probably be better than Ferrari but they’re mighty fast in the straight so we need to try and get ahead of Leclerc from the off, otherwise it will be quite a long, frustrating race behind him," said Russell.
Sauber's Gabriel Bortoleto will move up to seventh and evergreen Aston Martin driver Fernando Alonso, the Brazilian rookie's manager, eighth with Red Bull's Yuki Tsunoda ninth.
French rookie Isack Hadjar, who took his first career F1 podium with third place for Racing Bulls in Zandvoort, failed to make it through the opening phase and will start 16th.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Aidan Lewis, Clare Fallon and Ken Ferris)
