In a final qualifying session where the soft tyres were good for just a single flying lap – unlike the multiple fliers seen last week in Las Vegas – Lewis Hamilton was also knocked out in Q2 for Mercedes and Sergio Perez rued a track limits mistake in the other RB19.
In Q3, Verstappen put in a 1m23.445s on his first of two runs, with the world champion well clear of the rest at this stage as he was the only one to use new tyres.
On the second goes, Verstappen ran at the rear of the group of leaders to this point, but was unable to improve his time.
The rest did, but not by enough, with Leclerc going from just over a second off after the first Q3 runs to shoot up to second on his final attempt – ending up 0.139s to Verstappen.
Piastri took third ahead of George Russell, who climbed the order with Q3’s quickest time in the final sector to rise to fourth.
Lando Norris had looked like Verstappen’s biggest threat but he blew his shot with the new tyres right at the end due to a massive sideways moment at Turn 13 coming out from under the Yas Marina track’s sector three-straddling W hotel, which cost the Briton 0.4s.
Then came Yuki Tsunoda, Fernando Alonso and Nico Hulkenberg, as Perez ’s final lap was good enough for sixth but he lost it for running too wide out of Turn 1, where he had had a wild sideways moment on the first Q3 attempts. That pushed Perez down to ninth, as Pierre Gasly rounded out the top 10.
Source: Autosport