Lando Norris scores his first ever pole position at Sochi Autodrom

Weather has been causing havoc across the racing series at Sochi. Formula 1s final practice and Formula 2s first sprint race were both canceled earlier in the morning due to oriental rain.

During Q1, championship leader Max Verstappen excited qualifying without setting a time due to his new power unit being fitted.

The team mentioned teething issues and decided to pit knowing their eventual fate at the back of the grid.

Meanwhile heading into Q2 the same story occurred for Charles Leclerc who will also start from the back of the grid and retired early into the second session to save himself for the race.

Moving into the final 10 showdown, Q3 was an action packed 12 minutes!
To start with the weather conditions were starting to improve with a dry line emerging on track post rain downfall.

With four minutes remaining it looked like Hamilton had the best pace on the Intermediate tyres but crashed coming into the pits forcing his team to change the front wing.

A rush was sent through the pits to switch to softs with a clearer dry line showing.

Carlos Sainz was the first to come through smashing a solid 1.42.510. Only to be shortly outdone by his former teammate Lando Norris.

Norris managed to find the perfect line on the red soft compounds flying past the chequered flag in 1.41.993.

Shortly after setting provisional pole another British driver, George Russell, showed excellent late session form crossing the line in 3rd!

Hamilton cracked under the pressure and couldn’t hold onto his final lap sending his car backwards into the barriers before crossing the line for the final time.

The weather was chaotic and ever changing causing for an excellent qualifying and an abnormally switched up grid.

Let’s see what the race will bring!

Here are how the drivers classified:

_{Featured image source: Twitter.com/f1}