Alpine driver Pierre Gasly took a stunning pole position at the Italian Grand Prix.
The Frenchman, who took his sole Formula 1 victory at this race for Red Bull’s junior team in 2020, beat Mercedes’ George Russell by 0.060 seconds.
McLaren’s Oscar Piastri was third with the Ferraris of Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton fourth and fifth despite an upgraded engine.
Red Bull’s Max Verstappen took sixth, and McLaren’s Lando Norris only ninth after a messy session for the world champion.
Championship leader Kimi Antonelli of Mercedes qualified seventh but will start at the back because of a grid penalty for taking a new engine.
Gasly’s pole comes a day after he lost his third place from the Monaco Grand Prix because the FIA Court of Appeal reinstated a penalty he was given at the race in June.
The unexpected performance makes him the first Frenchman to take pole for a grand prix since Jean Alesi for Benetton at this race in 1997.
The result is a hiccup for Russell, who has a golden opportunity to make up ground on team-mate Antonelli, who has a 30-place grid penalty.
Alpine put a large upgrade on their car at the last race in the Netherlands, where Gasly could qualify only 11th. This result came out of nowhere.
The 30-year-old said: “It was amazing. Thank you to everyone. It was an incredible qualifying. From the first lap in Q1, I felt very good in the car, trying to chip away a bit every single session.
“It felt like a very good lap. It has been nine years trying to chase a pole position and to take my first win here and then my first pole here is amazing.”
Russell, who had been a strong favourite for pole in the light of Antonelli’s penalty, said: “Firstly, massive congrats to Pierre because that’s an incredible performance.
“We were finishing a game of chess 15 minutes before quaffing and he beat me there and I thought, ‘well, I will beat him in qualifying.’ But here we are. I am disappointed not to be on pole but Pierre was very fast from Q1.”
Piasstri’s result is a boost for the Australian, after a difficult few races, and it came with a time he set on his first flying lap.
He was leading the pack around, with Norris behind him, at the start of the final runs, not an ideal position given the importance of a tow at Monza, and locked up into the first chicane, going straight on into the run-off area.
“The first lap felt quite good,” the Australian said. “I tried to see if anyone wanted to go in front out of the pit lane but no-one did.
“It was always going to be difficult. I tried to be as late as possible into the first chicane and locked up so that was the session.”
Piastri’s mistake also hampered Norris, who was delayed at the chicane and was 0.4secs down at the first sector time. He could not recover the time, failed to improve and dropped from seventh to ninth.
Ferrari had looked set to be in the mix at the front before qualifying with their new engine that was believed to be worth about 0.1secs.
But the session did not go their way.
Hamilton made it through into the final session by only 0.001secs as Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto just failed to displace him, and let out an expletive over the radio when he saw the narrow escape.
And the red cars were just not fast enough in the final session. Leclerc was fourth on both his runs, while Hamilton, ninth on his first run, improved on his second but ended up 0.007secs behind his team-mate.
More to follow