Verstappen fastest in Belgian GP qualifying but Sainz takes pole position

Grid penalty pushes Red Bull driver to 15th for Sunday's race

Ferrari's Carlos Sainz Jr, Red Bull Racing's Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez after qualifying for the Belgian GP. AFP

Carlos Sainz Jr. will start from the pole Sunday at the Belgian Grand Prix after runaway Formula One championship leader Max Verstappen became one of many drivers to be hit with grid penalties.

Sainz was actually second fastest to Red Bull's Verstappen in Saturday qualifying but the reigning world champion will drop to 15th ahead of the start. Verstappen otherwise would have won his fourth pole of the season and 17th of his career.

The 24-year-old runaway leader of this year's title race clocked a fastest time of one minute and 43.665 seconds round the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

It left Ferrari's Sainz gasping in pursuit with a lap in 1:44.297, yet he took pole position, ahead of Sergio Perez in the second Red Bull, on a topsy-turvy afternoon.

Seven drivers faced grid penalties after new power-unit components, or gearboxes, were fitted to their cars. That meant their efforts in qualifying had no impact on the front of the grid.

Four of them - Verstappen, his title rival Charles Leclerc of Ferrari, Alpine's Esteban Ocon and McLaren's Lando Norris - were in the top 10 shootout, but will start 15th, 16th and further back.

Seven-times world champion Lewis Hamilton said he would not miss his Mercedes once the Formula One season was done and described Saturday's qualifying as a kick in the teeth after hoping for so much more.

Hamilton has yet to win in 13 races this year, the worst streak of his career, but arrived at Spa with an expectation of being closer to front-runners Red Bull and Ferrari. Instead Red Bull's Verstappen has been dominant.

Hamilton will start Sunday's race in fourth place after grid penalties for others including Verstappen but with little to celebrate after a lap that was nearly 1.8 seconds slower than the Dutchman's fastest.

"Everyone's working for improvements, we came here very, very optimistic that we were going to be able to be close, half a second, who knows?," the Briton told Sky Sports television.

"To be 1.8 seconds behind, it's a real kick in the teeth."

Hamilton said the car felt like it had a parachute behind it on the straights and was also aerodynamically unstable in corners.

"It's a car that we continue to struggle with and I definitely won't miss it at the end of the year. For me it's just about focusing on how we build and design next year's car," he added.

"The other two teams ahead of us are in another league but our car looks so much different to theirs. So we've got a lot of work to do, we'll do the best we can with what we have for the rest of the season."