Max Verstappen takes pole in highly eventful qualifying for Sprint at Imola on Saturday

Max Verstappen eventually came out on top after a red flag-filled, wet/dry qualifying on Friday evening at Imola ahead of the first Sprint of the season on Saturday.

Friday’s qualifying result will set the grid for Sprint tomorrow afternoon, whilst the result of that will then dictate who starts up at the front for the Grand Prix on Sunday.

It’s Max Verstappen leading them away tomorrow, though, and this is how qualifying played out on Friday night…

Some early drama struck Alex Albon in Q1 as he drove over some smoking debris, which set the rear of his car on fire.

After the clean-up and the red flag, the field came back out on a track that was getting drier, and quicker, all of the time.

Eventually, the chequered flag dropped and both AlphaTauris at their home race were eliminated, as well as Nicholas Latifi and Esteban Ocon alongside Albon.

There was a mad dash out of the pitlane at the start of Q2, with the threat of the rain returning looming large.

Heavy clouds lingered over the circuit and over Carlos Sainz, after he put his Ferrari into the wall – just a day after signing a new contract with the team – some comedown.

The red flag, and the arriving wet weather, meant those in the drop zone would not get a chance to set a quick enough time to get out of Q2, and so George Russell, Mick Schumacher, Lewis Hamilton, Guanyu Zhou and Lance Stroll were the casualties.

More red flags would follow in Q3 with Kevin Magnussen spinning, but recovering, Valtteri Bottas suffering a technical fault, and Lando Norris also running off of the circuit – with the final red flag falling in the final seconds, meaning it was Verstappen’s pole position for Sprint on Saturday, with him setting the fastest time up to that point, ahead of