Mercedes pounce on McLaren's mistakes as Verstappen goes top in Qatar qualifying

Max Verstappen delivered another masterclass in Qatar to take his 10th pole position of the 2023 Formula 1 season.

READ | How Max Verstappen can win the F1 title this weekend

The Red Bull driver looked comfortable throughout the sole practice session on Friday afternoon and carried that into qualifying.

At the end of Q3, the final part of qualifying, the Dutchman's first run was more than 0.5 seconds quicker than the rest of the field, with him aborting his last attempt at improving his time after exceeding track limits.

"Great start to the weekend," the soon-to-be three-time F1 champion said after qualifying.

"It's quite tricky out there, but I'm very happy to be on pole; it's been a good day for us. Let's make sure [on Saturday] we have a good day as well."

A dominant qualifying performance from @Max33Verstappen ??

And a 10th pole of the season ??#F1 #QatarGP pic.twitter.com/PMsrPleR16

Silver Arrows, attack!

McLaren's Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri looked very strong throughout Friday's running, but both drivers fell victim to exceeding track limits. Ultimately, Norris failed to register a lap time and will start 10th.

Though he qualified in P2, Race Control deleted Norris' time, resulting in Mercedes' George Russell being promoted to P2 and Piastri P3.

"Really happy to be [P2], it's better than we expected. Our fight is with Ferrari to secure P2 in the constructors' championship," Russell said, noting that he and team-mate Lewis Hamilton will do all they can to outscore rivals Ferrari in both the Sprint Race and the main Grand Prix.

In lieu of Norris' demotion, Piastri was promoted to P3, but he was notified of his lap time deletion during his post-race interview. It resulted in him being relegated to P6 and Hamilton jumping