Max Verstappen secures pole with fastest ever lap at Monza

Love him or hate him, Max Verstappen has proved this season why he’s on the Christmas shopping list of so many team principals' and CEOs'. 

With a lap time of 1:18:792 seconds, and an average speed of 264.6km/h - Verstappen set the fastest ever lap time at Monza on Saturday to take pole position for Sunday’s race. 

By doing so, the Dutch champion secured the 45th pole position of his career and the 108th pole position for team Red Bull - beating a long held Lotus record. 

The third qualifying round at Monza was nothing short of nail biting, with the momentum shifting back and forth between Lando Norris and Verstappen. 

It was the last few seconds left on the clock during Q3 and Norris had just clocked a 1:18:896 to take the provisional pole but Verstappen was still out on a lap. 

His first two sector speed times matched Norris and the RB21 looked evenly matched alongside the lightning quick MCL39, but a moment of pure Verstappen brilliance during sector 3 at Monza saw team Red Bull erupt to the news of pole position. 

Not forgetting to mention, Verstappen had only just pipped Norris by a fine margin to take the pole, but a wise man once said - “it doesn’t matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winning’s winning.”

The four-time champion let out a cheer at the end, strange, because I really thought he was going to drop the “simply lovely” line, which is textbook Verstappen. The Champion has shown a different level of grit this year but track conditions in Italy have played in his favour. 

Success there depends on straight line speed more than the cars aerodynamic capability but there’s no telling whether or not he can fend off Norris and Oscar Piastri - who qualified in P3, on Sunday. 

“Around here with the low downforce it is always difficult to nail the lap and it's easy to make mistakes with the braking. But I felt good during the Q3 and happy with the laps and of course to take pole for us is fantastic. 

“The car has been working a lot better the whole weekend and I’m happy to be able to fight for pole,” Verstappen said. 

“We were still lacking toward the end but we made some final changes which I think allowed me to push a bit more and that’s exactly what you need in qualifying so for us, it was a great moment,” he added.