F1 sprint race

World champion will start P1 on Sunday and claimed championship eight points, while Lewis Hamilton struggled with his Mercedes and will begin in 14th.

With the victory Verstappen has secured pole for Sunday a potentially vital achievement at Imola where overtaking is difficult. It was a bravura move, perfectly executed and the sort of racing the sprint race has long needed. He was third several laps later, an impressive run and vital for Red Bull so he can play his part in the race tomorrow. Max Verstappen won the sprint race for the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola and in doing so secured pole for Sunday’s race. Out front however while Leclerc was in control, Verstappen closed in the final four laps to within a second. Both Hamilton and Russell struggled to make any headway through the field, unsurprisingly with a tricky can on a track where overtaking is far from easy.

Max Verstappen will start the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix from pole position after snatching victory from Charles Leclerc in the Saturday sprint.

And for the first time this season he got close to admitting that an eighth title was fully out of his grasp this season. There was plenty of shuffling through the field during the sprint as some cars found their natural position in the pack. But the sprint is somewhere in between: a flat-out 100 kilometres on a single set of tyres and with a moderate fuel load. But if they’re off the pace, as they have been in the three races so far this season, it might ironically prove to be ammunition for those against the new weekend format despite the action they were central to generating on Saturday. Therefore any action we get on Saturday — say, from drivers who qualified out of position — is effectively robbed from Sunday, which is supposed to still be the weekend’s main event. “With these cars, it is better to follow, but it’s still very hard to pass. Both drivers will be pleased to have inserted themselves back into the victory conversation for Sunday. Leclerc’s front-left started graining, and all of a sudden Verstappen was all over the back of him. The track then dried out overnight for Saturday practice and the sprint, and teams had to hope the decisions they’d made the day before would translate for dry conditions. But the sprint is also an unusual event in the bigger F1 picture. There’s only one DRS zone this weekend, but it’s around 1100 metres long. It was F1’s fourth sprint experiment and arguably its most successful.

Max Verstappen won the first Sprint of 2022 having passed Charles Leclerc with two laps remaining, to ensure a first-place start for Sunday's Emilia Romagna ...

The championship leader skated away, Verstappen in tow. Green-flag racing would resume on Lap 5, Leclerc leading Verstappen then Norris at the time. Friday's wet qualifying session set the grid for this Sprint, Verstappen having taken pole position over Leclerc with Lando Norris leading Kevin Magnussen off the second row. Gearbox issues put Esteban Ocon 19th for the start of the Sprint and he made up three places for P16 in the Alpine, keeping Gasly – who collided with Zhou at the start and pitted for a nose change – 17th. Magnussen held on for the final point, finishing ahead of Alpine's Fernando Alonso in P9 – who started fifth but couldn't contend with his rivals' pace on the softs – and the other Haas of Mick Schumacher, who took P10 on mediums. It was Leclerc, to a rapturous reception from the tifosi, who took the lead off Verstappen as the lights went out – only for the Safety Car to interrupt proceedings as Zhou Guanyu (DNF) and Pierre Gasly (P19) made contact through Turn 9 on Lap 1.

Red Bull's Max Verstappen overthrew Charles Leclerc late on to win the first sprint race of the 2022 Formula 1 season at the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix.

And Perez kept putting the slipstream out of the final corner for the run into the chicane to good use as he then copied the manoeuvre on Norris with the help of DRS to climb to third. That brought Verstappen close out of Rivazza and gave him the slipstream, which combined with DRS, allowed him to make his move around the outside into Tamburello. Leclerc gave his rival space at the first apex, and Verstappen kept within the painted lines to make the move stick before romping to a 1.5s lead before sealing the win by 2.9s. Leclerc had not made an error, as Verstappen brought the gap below a second and then used DRS and the slipstream out of the final corner to bring the difference down to half a second. Leclerc settled a little over the 1s threshold for three tours and then on lap seven, set what was at the time the fastest lap of the race to stretch his cushion to 1.5s over the RB18. With the aid of DRS and as his Ferrari rival battled oversteer, Verstappen dived around the outside into Tamburello and kept his car on track to take the win and pole for the full GP on Sunday. Leclerc had nailed his launch and with the kink on the main straight placing him on the inside, he could sprint past a wheel-spinning Verstappen to seize first into Tamburello.

Max Verstappen will start from pole position for the Formula 1 Emilia Romagna Grand Prix at Imola after winning the sprint race. Here's how and when you can ...

For the entire 2022 F1 season, Channel 4 will broadcast highlights of every qualifying and race of each event. Current weather forecasts predict cool and cloudy conditions at Imola, with a good chance of rain during the race. Will the F1 Emilia Romagna GP be on the radio? Sky Sports can also be accessed through NOW with a one-off day payment of £11.98p or a month membership of £33.99p per month. Live streaming through NOW is also available in the UK. In the United Kingdom, Sky Sports will be live broadcasting the Emilia Romagna GP, with the race shown live on Sky Sports F1. Pre-race coverage will be starting on Sky Sports F1 at 12:30pm BST ahead of the race start at 2:00pm BST.

Leclerc, struggling with tyre wear, came home second ahead of Sergio Perez in the other Red Bull, Carlos Sainz in the second Ferrari and Lando Norris of McLaren ...

On Lando’s side, we experienced a brake system issue when he did his first run,” McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl told Sky Sports of the problem. This collision prompted a Safety Car intervention while the debris was cleared. “I had a very bad start with too much wheel spin,” said Verstappen. “I had to stay calm. By lap 11, Leclerc led by 1.4 seconds with Perez charging through to third, six seconds adrift, Norris fourth and a charging Ricciardo up to fifth ahead of Sainz, also on a charge for Ferrari, and Magnussen. Mercedes struggled again despite an improved showing in second practice. “I pushed hard at the beginning to try and not be too vulnerable with Max having the DRS behind, and I feel like I’ve paid the price of doing that at the end of the race,” he said.